Kyoto sits in a basin with mountains on three sides, a grid of streets laid out in the late eighth century on the model of the Chinese capital, and it remained the imperial seat until 1868. That long continuity explains why the World Heritage list includes seventeen separate places under the name of the historic monuments of ancient Kyoto: temples, shrines and one castle, dotted around the city and across the border into Otsu. The city was spared the worst of the bombing in the Second World War, which is a large part of why so much survives.
For a rider, the city is easier than its reputation suggests, if you leave your expectations at the edge. The grid helps, the avenues run straight, and the big roads around the outer ring let you cross town fast. But the central streets are narrow, one-way and crowded with bicycles, taxis and buses, and parking for motorbikes is limited. A good plan is to leave the machine at the hotel and walk, or to find a dedicated bike park and base yourself there. In the evening, the lanes of Gion and Pontocho glow with paper lanterns, and the smell of grilled fish and charcoal drifts through the alleys.
The ride that begins in Kyoto heads for Yakushi-ji in Nara, an old Buddhist temple founded at the end of the seventh century whose twin pagodas hold some of the finest early architecture in Japan. The route takes you south through the Uji district, where the best Japanese green tea is grown and where you can find a cup of matcha served alongside sweet bean paste in an old tea house. It is also the home of Byodo-in, the Phoenix Hall, an eleventh-century building familiar from the ten-yen coin. From there you follow the Kizu river valley and cross low hills into the Nara basin, a quiet and mildly rolling ride past rice fields, tea terraces and bamboo thickets.
You can fuel in nearly any part of the city, but the busiest areas near Kyoto Station or Gion have fewer stations than the outer districts, so top up when you see one. Food is an art here: tofu cooked in a dozen ways, vegetables pickled in rice bran, and the multi-course meals known as kaiseki. In the hot, damp summer, a cold bowl of noodles by the river is just the thing, and in winter the hills are clean and cold, with bare maples against a pale sky.