The cherry trees were just starting to flower when I arrived in Kyoto.  The appearance of the blossom marks the peak of the city’s tourism season, but the old, narrow streets leading to Kyomizu-dera temple were quiet and the shops still shuttered when I visited in the early morning.  The day had started grey and chilly.  By the time I had reached the Yasaka shrine a few hours later the sun had broken through and it was warm enough to have a coffee sitting outside and watch the occasional honeymooners in traditional costume walking in Maruyama park.

The spiritual and the temporal co-exist comfortably in most of the Japanese cities I have visited, but nowhere so well as they do in Kyoto.  The city’s many shrines and temples are far more than visitor attractions or historical monuments.  Like ancient parish churches in England, they feel like the heart of a persistent but understated religious culture.  In Kodai-ji and Chion-in temples and in Otani Sobyo I came across scores of Buddhists of all ages quietly praying or meditating, largely oblivious to those like me drawn to the buildings by more secular interests.  In Kyoto, a city otherwise as frenetic as any in Japan, the modern and the secular haven’t swept away a more enduring and contemplative spirit.