Until Japan’s capital was moved to Tokyo in 1869, the country’s emperors ruled from Kyoto’s Imperial Palace for 11 centuries. During that millennium, the city flowered with dozens of shrines, temples and castles built in a rhapsodic variety of East Asian vernaculars: some meditative and simple, some with towering Chinese-style pagodas, others wrapped in gold. No wonder so many travelers flock to Kyoto. It may be a modern metropolis (population 1.4 million), but it guards the last remnants of