Yanaka 谷中

Yanaka, Nezu and Sendagi, collectively Yanesen, form the largest piece of pre-war Tokyo that neither the 1923 earthquake nor the 1945 bombing erased. The three districts occupy a ridge north of Ueno where the shogunate moved dozens of temples in the 17th century, and where the alleys between them filled with wooden houses, craftsmen and, later, the writers and painters of the university up the road. Today those houses hold a cafe in a former sake shop, a sculptor’s studio open on weekends, a gallery in an old public bath and the famous cats, real and ceramic, that have become the neighborhood’s logo.

The classic route runs from Nippori station through the cemetery, where Tokugawa Yoshinobu lies under the cherry trees, down the Yuyake Dandan staircase at sunset into Yanaka Ginza, a 170-meter shopping street of croquette windows, tea merchants and shops selling only chopsticks. From there wander south to Nezu Shrine, with its vermilion torii tunnel and 3,000 azaleas, or east through Sendagi’s bookshops to the Asakura sculpture museum. Yanaka is slow, low-rise and shuts early; it is the Tokyo most visitors did not think still existed.