Kyoto

The bamboo path before the crowds, a 14th-century Zen temple with a mountain-borrowed garden, 1,200 stone Jizo statues above the village, and a tofu kaiseki dinner in a wooden townhouse by the river.

Start before sunrise at the thousand torii, cross the city to the eastern mountains for temples and a canal-side walk, finish with dinner on a riverside lane in Pontocho. The Kyoto that rewards being awake at five.