Kyoto for The Solo Traveller: a Friday-to-Monday weekend

Forty minutes up the fire-festival path to the bonfire terraces, the whole city laid out below as the sun drops behind Arashiyama.

Cross the stepping stones where the rivers meet and watch the students and herons claim the bank at dusk.

A counter bowl of clear dashi ramen with yuzu, solo stools only, queue by the ticket machine.

Climb to the Yotsutsuji crossing before six, with the gates empty, the lamps still lit and the crows waking.

Over the ridge past the root-knotted cedars to Kifune shrine, then draw a fortune and dip it in the stream to read it.

A riverside house in Kibune with platforms over the stream in summer and hot pot in the cold months, before the Eizan train down.

Rent a bike at Saga-Arashiyama station and ride the grove and the Hozu riverbank before the first tour bus at nine.

Twenty minutes by train, then a ferry across Japan's largest lake to the Chikubushima island shrine or a loop past the Omi coast.

Eight seats at a cypress counter, the chef and his wife, an omakase that ends with anago and a cup of tea.

The Phoenix Hall of 1053 on its pond, the building on the ten-yen coin, open before the school groups arrive.

Walk the Uji river past the cormorant boats and the tea roasters, stopping at a roaster to try a cup ground by stone mill.

Matcha soba and a matcha jelly at the 1854 tea merchant's counter, then the train to Kyoto and the airport.