The Golden Pavilion has been burned down at least once, and that is part of why it feels so intense. Rokuon-ji, the temple most people call Kinkaku-ji, began as the retirement villa of the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, who built it in the 1390s on the hillside of Kitayama in the north-west of Kyoto, and left instructions that after his death it should become a Zen temple. The three-storey pavilion on the lake is covered in gold leaf above the ground floor, each storey in a different architectural style, and topped with a bronze phoenix. In calm weather the reflection in the pond is perfect, and in winter, with snow on the roof, it is almost too much.
The old building was destroyed in 1950 when a young monk who was obsessed by the building set fire to it, a story that Yukio Mishima turned into one of the best-known Japanese novels of the twentieth century. The pavilion was rebuilt in the mid-1950s, and later regilded with a thicker layer of gold leaf in the 1980s. The garden around it, a carefully arranged stroll garden with islands, rocks and pine trees shaped like clouds, preserves the planning of Yoshimitsu's age, the Muromachi period, when Kyoto was at the height of its tea, noh and ink-painting culture.
On a bike, Kyoto is a city for patience. The streets are laid out on a grid that was copied from ancient Chinese capitals, and that makes navigation simple, but traffic is dense, buses and taxis dominate, and the cycling lanes get crowded. Speed limits are low and enforced. Parking for motorcycles near the temple is limited, so use a designated car park and walk. Arrive when the gates open and the light is soft, and you can see the pavilion before the tour coaches arrive. Autumn leaves in November and the quiet of a snowy morning are the best moments, and the heat of summer makes the gold almost painful to look at.
Kyoto has about one and a half million people, so fuel, food and everything else are easy, though petrol stations in the centre are fewer than you might expect. Beyond the city the hills to the north, along the Kitayama cedar roads and past Kurama and Kibune, offer narrow, twisting, forested riding, with tiny villages and cool air in summer. Come back to the lanes near the temple for a bowl of udon or a sweet of matcha and red bean, and you have a good day.