Kyoto for The Curious Wanderers: a Friday-to-Monday weekend

Hand looms running on the second floor and a kimono show on the hour, the trade's own front window.

Abe no Seimei's pentagram on every lantern, a well whose water changes direction with the seasons, and a bridge said to cross into the other world.

Dinner in a converted 1930s bathhouse, the majolica tiles still on the walls and a cook who came from the neighbourhood.

Go at opening for the pickle barrels, the tofu-skin sellers and the grilled hamo, before the sampling crowd arrives.

A thousand and one gilded Kannon in rows, each face different, with Thunder and Wind gods at the ends of a hall built in 1266.

Eat inari-zushi from a stall at the base, then walk the upper vermilion gates by lamplight where foxes and the occasional cat hold the path.

Crawl through the hole in the paper-covered stone to cut a bad bond and tie a good one, as the written amulets stacked on it instruct.

The Utsuki family dye with fermented natural indigo in sunken vats; book ahead to dip a cloth yourself.

Burnt-miso ramen in a converted machiya, the broth charred black in the wok at a counter you can watch.

On the 21st of each month the pagoda grounds fill with antique dealers, old dolls, netsuke and medicine chests; on other days the Kōdō's esoteric mandala of statues.

Order a gyokuro set and they teach you the water temperature and the three steepings at the counter.

A soba and kitsune-don house in Okazaki, near Heian Shrine, with a plain wooden room and a queue at noon. Order the kyōdon with a bowl of noodles.