A week eating through Kyoto in peak foliage

Kyoto in November asks one thing of you: wake up early. The temples that are shoulder-to-shoulder at ten are silent at seven, and Kiyomizu-dera's pagoda over a city turning red and gold is worth every minute of lost sleep.

The eating brackets both ends of the spectrum better than anywhere I know. One night it's sixteen courses at a counter like Sakura; the next lunch is a ¥900 bowl of udon from a shop with six stools that has made one thing for fifty years — and the udon does not feel like a step down. That range, executed at that level, is the whole city's genius.

Nishiki Market for morning grazing, a ryokan night with a kaiseki dinner if the budget allows one splurge, and the Philosopher's Path when the maples cooperate.

Six nights. You could do a lifetime.