Yanaka: the Tokyo that survived
The low-city that escaped the bombs — sunset stairs, temple lanes, and a cherry-lined cemetery. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Yanaka Cemetery
Begin at the cemetery's cherry-lined central avenue, a few minutes from Nippori. This is a working burial ground — walk it quietly — but the trees turn it into one of the gentlest avenues in the city, and the last shogun is buried somewhere among them.

2. SCAI the Bathhouse
A 200-year-old public bathhouse turned contemporary gallery, the white-tiled facade and chimney kept intact. Free to step inside; the shows change, but the building is always the point.

3. Yanaka temple lanes
*Yanaka* has dozens of *-dera* (Buddhist temples) packed into a few quiet blocks — the area was a temple town moved here after the great fire of 1657. Pick any wall to follow; the timber gates and mossed stone are the reward, not any single temple.

4. Yanaka Ginza
The *shotengai* (covered shopping street) — croquettes eaten on the hoof, *senbei* (rice crackers), the cat motifs the neighbourhood adopted as its own. Small, lived-in, and not yet a museum of itself.

5. Yuyake Dandan
The 'sunset stairs' at the east end of *Yanaka Ginza*, looking back down the street. Time it for late afternoon and the low sun runs straight down the *shotengai* — the reason the steps have a name.

6. Sendagi backstreets
Wind down through the old wooden houses towards Sendagi — narrow lanes, potted plants on every step, the occasional cat doing exactly as it pleases. The Chiyoda line is a few minutes on.

Yanaka: the Tokyo that survived