Osaka, Tohoku & Tokyo, 7 Nights

Met at Kansai International and driven into the city. After check-in, walk the Namba side: Namba Yasaka shrine, whose stage is a giant lion's head with its mouth wide open, said to swallow bad luck, and Kuromon market for grilled scallops and fresh fruit by the piece. Dotonbori's canal and neon are ten minutes further on foot, the right place for a first dinner of okonomiyaki.

A day in Kyoto. Fushimi Inari first, early, to walk under its tunnels of red torii before the tour groups arrive. Then Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion, its upper floors covered in gold leaf above a still pond, and Arashiyama in the west of the city, where the path through the bamboo grove leads down to the Togetsukyo bridge over the river. Back to Osaka in the evening.

Morning flight from Osaka's Itami airport north to Hanamaki in Iwate, then the drive into Morioka, a small castle town where three rivers meet. The castle is gone, but its massive stone walls survive in Iwate Park. By the district court stands the Ishiwari-zakura, a cherry tree that has grown up through a split in a granite boulder for about four centuries. For dinner try wanko soba, where the server keeps refilling your bowl with mouthfuls of noodles until you close the lid.

West out of the city to Koiwai Farm at the foot of Mt Iwate, a working dairy estate founded in 1891 whose old barns are protected buildings; the ice cream and cheesecake are the reason most people come. Then north into Hachimantai, a volcanic plateau of beech forest, marshes and steaming ground. The Matsukawa geothermal area and the Fudo waterfall make short, easy walks. The night is spent at a hot-spring inn, with baths fed from the mountain.

From late April to early November the Aspite Line crosses the top of the Hachimantai plateau, with walls of snow in spring and red and gold beech in October; outside that season the car takes the valley road. Lake Tazawa is the deepest lake in Japan, deep blue, with a gold statue of the legendary Tatsuko on its shore; a boat goes out in the warmer months. The evening is Kakunodate, where samurai families lived behind black board fences on streets planted with weeping cherries.

Morning in Kakunodate's samurai quarter: the Aoyagi house, a family compound turned museum of armour and everyday things, and the Ishiguro house, still lived in by the same family. Then the Akita Shinkansen from Kakunodate station south through the mountains to Tokyo, about three hours. In the afternoon, the Tokyo Skytree observation deck and the digital rooms of teamLab, a sharp contrast after two days in the country.

Nothing is booked. The classic day moves from Senso-ji in Asakusa to the Ueno museums (the National Museum is closed on Mondays) and on to Akihabara, then west to Meiji Jingu and Harajuku, ending at Shibuya for the crossing after dark. For something quieter, Kamakura's great Buddha is about an hour south by train. We send a written plan with the lines marked.

Breakfast and check-out, and the transfer to Haneda or Narita timed from your flight. Allow extra for Narita. With a late flight, leave the bags at the hotel and spend an hour in a nearby department-store food hall, where boxed sweets for gifts are wrapped beautifully and packed for travel.