Ueno & Yanaka上野・谷中

One day · The whole loop

Around the Yamanote line in a day of eating: soba in Kanda, unagi in Ueno, a tea house in a garden, tempura in Shinjuku, tonkatsu in Meguro and oden in Ebisu

The Yamanote loop takes an hour to ride and a lifetime to eat. This day rides it clockwise from Tokyo Station and gets off six times, once for each meal a body can reasonably hold: soba, unagi, tea, tempura, tonkatsu, oden. Every stop is from our station-by-station guide, verified on the date shown; walk times are from the station gates. Buy a day ticket and eat small.

Akihabara & Kanda · Ueno & Yanaka · Shinjuku · Nakameguro, Daikanyama & Ebisu · Ginza · 7 stops

One day · Ueno, Yanaka, Nezu

Museums, then the neighbourhood the bombs missed: a slow day from Ueno Park to Yanaka and Nezu

Ueno has the museums; Yanaka, over the hill behind them, has the city they are about. This day pairs them: the national collection in the morning, when the sword room is empty, and then a walk north into a district of temples, wooden houses and a shopping street where the croquettes are eaten standing up — the Tokyo that existed before 1945 and, here, still does. It ends at a shrine unchanged since 1706 and the subway home.

Ueno & Yanaka · 8 stops

Guide · Anywhere in the centre

A rainy day in Tokyo, done well: a national collection, a depachika lunch, a coffee house, an art-book lounge and a bath

Tokyo in the rain is not a lesser city; it is one that moves indoors, into museums, food halls, coffee houses and baths that were built for exactly this. The rule is to choose one district and stay under its roofs — every large station is a covered city — rather than to cross town. Here is a day assembled from the best of them, with the alternatives by area so you can build your own.

Ueno & Yanaka · Shinjuku · Marunouchi & Tokyo Station · Nakameguro, Daikanyama & Ebisu · Roppongi & Azabu · 5 stops

Tokyo National Museum東京国立博物館

The national collection — swords, Buddhas, screens, kimono, tea bowls — in six buildings on the edge of the park.

150 min · Ueno (JR, park exit), 10 minutes across the park; Uguisudani (JR), 10 minutes

National Museum of Western Art国立西洋美術館

Le Corbusier's only building in East Asia, a World Heritage Site, with Rodin in the forecourt and Monet inside.

90 min · Ueno (JR, park exit), 1 minute

Ueno Park and Shinobazu Pond上野公園と不忍池

Japan's first public park — the cherry avenue, the lotus pond, a Toshogu shrine in gold, and a zoo.

90 min · Ueno (JR / Ginza / Hibiya lines), park exit

Yanaka Ginza and the Yanesen lanes谷中銀座と谷根千の路地

A 170-metre shopping street of croquettes, cats and shopkeepers who know each other, at the bottom of a flight of "sunset stairs".

150 min · Nippori (JR / Keisei), west exit, 5 minutes

Nezu Shrine根津神社

A 1706 shrine intact from the shogun's day, with a hillside of three thousand azaleas and a tunnel of small torii.

40 min · Nezu (Chiyoda line), 5 minutes; Todaimae (Namboku line), 5 minutes

Ameyoko market streetアメ横

A postwar black market that became a four-hundred-shop bazaar under the railway — fish, spices, sneakers and shouting.

45 min · Ueno (JR, Shinobazu exit) or Okachimachi (JR)

Asakura Museum of Sculpture朝倉彫塑館

A sculptor's own house of 1935 — concrete studio, wooden home, a water garden in the middle and a roof garden of olives.

50 min · Nippori (JR / Keisei), west exit, 5 minutes