Nishiki Market

Four hundred metres of covered lane one block north of Shijo, about 130 shops wide enough for two people to pass, and roughly four centuries of trading. Nishiki began as a fish market, helped by cold groundwater under this particular street, and it supplied Kyoto's restaurants and temple kitchens long before it supplied anyone with a snack on a stick.

That is the tension in the place now. Many of the old family businesses have shifted from selling ingredients to selling street food, because that is what the visitors want, and long-standing customers grumble that the market they used has thinned out. Both versions are still here. The pickle sellers, tofu and yuba makers, dashi and knife shops are the reason Nishiki is called Kyoto's kitchen, and Aritsugu at the eastern end has been forging blades since 1560, when it made swords.

Things worth eating: tako tamago, a small candied octopus with a quail egg set in its head; freshly fried soy milk doughnuts; grilled tofu; hamo in summer. Pickles are sold in sample slices, and a shop that offers you one expects you to consider buying.

Note the signs asking you not to walk while eating. The lane is too narrow for it and the shopkeepers pushed for the rule after years of dropped skewers. Most stalls have a spot to stand.

The ceiling panels in red, yellow and green are the market's own colours. At the eastern end the lane runs straight into the Teramachi arcade, and Nishiki Tenmangu shrine sits in the corner, complete with a bronze ox worn shiny.