Kyoto was the capital of Japan for over a thousand years, from 794 until 1868, and it still carries itself like it. The founders laid the city out on the Chinese model, a rectangular grid with the palace at the north, and the grid is why a tourist can wander straight for ten minutes and know where they are. The old city sits in a basin ringed by low wooded mountains on three sides: Higashiyama to the east, Kitayama to the north, Nishiyama to the west. Seventeen monuments in and around Kyoto make up the UNESCO listing, from the mossy temples to the great castle of Nijo.
On a motorcycle the city asks for patience rather than skill. Streets are narrow, bicycles go everywhere, buses stop without warning, and parking for bikes is a puzzle you solve street by street. Slow is the right speed. The reward is how quickly you leave the city: twenty minutes to the north puts you on the Kurama and Kibune road, winding up a cedar-lined river valley with small shrines and an old mountain temple at the top, and in the evening it smells of woodsmoke and wet stone. Heading southeast, the old road to Nara takes you past tea fields near Uji and into rural lanes where the old province of Yamato begins.
The riding day starting here goes to Toshodai-ji, the temple in Nara that the Chinese monk Ganjin founded in the eighth century after several failed attempts to reach Japan by sea. He arrived nearly blind and brought the first proper ordination ceremonies. That story is worth having in your head as you cross the plain.
The city's food reaches in two directions. There is formal kaiseki, which most riders skip because it takes an evening and a good deal of money, and there is the everyday: tofu, pickles, noodles, matcha, and the covered market of Nishiki, a long narrow lane that starts selling in the morning. Fuel is available everywhere on the outskirts, but central stations are few, so fill on the ring road. The best seasons are late March for blossom and mid November for maples, though they are also the most crowded. February is cold, empty and very beautiful.