Kyoto

The capital for 1,074 years, from 794 to 1868, and the reason so much survives is uncomfortable: Kyoto was on the shortlist of targets for the atomic bomb and was removed from it, so the large-scale firebombing that flattened most Japanese cities never came here, though smaller raids did hit the city in 1945. What you walk through is largely intact.

It is not a museum. Kyoto is a working city of 1.4 million with a university population, a manufacturing sector that includes Nintendo and Kyocera, and a grid of ordinary streets between the famous places. The grid itself is the oldest thing here, laid out on a Chinese model in the eighth century and still legible: streets run north-south and east-west, and the numbered avenues make navigation easier than in any other Japanese city.

Seventeen sites carry the UNESCO listing. Trying to see them in three days produces a bad trip. Two or three places a day, chosen in one part of the city each day, is the difference between visiting Kyoto and queueing in it. Higashiyama in the east, Arashiyama in the west, the northern hills around Kinkaku-ji and Ryoan-ji, and the centre for markets and food.

Timing beats planning. Temples open between six and eight in the morning and the difference between eight and ten is the difference between a garden and a crowd. Autumn foliage in the second half of November and the cherry blossom in early April are the two weeks when the city is fullest.

Eat: kaiseki if the budget allows, but also obanzai home cooking, tofu around Nanzen-ji, and everything on Nishiki market. The Kyoto dialect is softer and slower than Osaka's, and locals will tell you the difference matters.