Possibly the prettiest city in the world

I'm very late in publishing this for no good reason (Japan does not have a firewall), but as the readership of these is limited, I don't think it matters too much. Here thoughts on Kyoto (+Nara and Osaka) from about a week ago, but not uploaded till now. Others to follow.

A is somewhat irritated that all these have strange titles, rather than just say Kyoto, as in this case. But as that would be boring so I am sticking to this as a descriptor for Kyoto, as it is possibly the prettiest city in the world. It contains, according to the guidebook, the most beautiful street in all Asia. This seems to be highly likely, based on my experience of other streets in Asia.

Low competition on streets aside, it is an extraordinary city. We were there a week and although we spent a day out of the city in Nara, which is very much in the same mould, we managed to do no more than half of the temples possible, though we obviously prioritised what we were told were the best. Almost all were beautiful, and many were just stunning. A & I disagree slightly on the best ones, but both concur on the overall point. My personal favourites were Kiyomizu-dera, which looked stunning in the weather (and we were lucky with the weather), the  Imperial palace, the Zen gardens at the Daitoku-ji, (especially Zuiho-in) and the Byodo-in (though frustratingly, we didn't get to go inside as the place shut at 4.10). However, the major temples and sights only tell part of the story. Their sheer density obviously contributes to the impression of Kyoto as a lovely city, and the time of the season helps - there is a lot of blossom about - but it's also some of the other bits. It has its fair share of slightly scruffy roads, but it's not very long before a well maintained temple or riverside  hits you, and in all the cases I've seen, they've been tidy and clean. Britain fails this fairly elementary requirement, and Southern Europe is disastrous (we're not even mentioning the Middle East in this context). Japan is uniquely good at it and Kyoto reaps the benefit.

Kyoto is obviously our first time in Japan and we're both struck by how nice they are; I'm also struck by how short they are and how this makes me bump my head a lot, though their niceness more than makes up for it. When we arrived, the LP has fairly poor directions to our Ryokan yet within 5 minutes of being lost in the general area, no less than two people had volunteered to help up and one cheerfully walked us to the right road. There have been countless other examples, but none more welcome than that at 7:30 pm having got up at 4:30 to get our flights out of Beijing. It's not even been as expensive as we had feared, and a focus on Sushi and karaoke (amazingly cheap for booze) has really kept the price down.