Kyoto

Kyoto is flat, compact and largely low-rise, ringed on three sides by wooded hills. The famous sites sit at the edges of that ring, which is why the city rewards planning by district rather than by landmark: eastern Higashiyama in one go, Arashiyama in the west in another, the centre on foot between them. Trying to alternate between east and west in a single day means an hour on a bus each time.

The crowd problem is real and almost entirely solvable with a clock. Fushimi Inari is open around the clock and is a genuinely different place before seven; Arashiyama's bamboo grove empties out for the same reason. By eleven the buses on the main routes are standing-room and the tour groups have arrived. Front-load the day, take the middle hours somewhere indoors or in a garden nobody photographs, and go back out in the late afternoon.

Transport is the one thing Kyoto does less well than the rest of Japan. There are only two subway lines, so buses carry the load and they get stuck in the same traffic you would. Walking and a bicycle cover the centre better than either. For Nara or Uji, use the private railways rather than JR where they run more directly — both are comfortable half-day trips from a Kyoto base, and neither needs its own night.