Kibune gives you autumn at a single point: mid-November. The valley is narrow, pressed in by slopes on both sides, and short seasons suit it. If the timing works, everything works.

The narrowness is the mechanism. Because the valley has height, the colour does not arrive all at once — red low down, yellow in the middle, green still holding above, the season arranged in layers up the hillsides. The river runs right past the shrine, and it has always been the point of the place: Kifune enshrines the deity of water, and everything in the valley faces the stream one way or another.

The approach to the main hall is a flight of stone steps lined with vermilion lanterns, and in the season the painted red and the grown red share one frame. They are not the same red. Seeing exactly how they differ is most of the pleasure, and the hour before the light goes is when the difference is clearest.

Getting here is part of the shape of the day: the Eizan line to Kibuneguchi, a bus up the valley, then five minutes on foot. There is parking for eighteen cars, which is to say there is no parking. Take the train, walk the last stretch beside the water, and let the river bring you in. It has been doing this longer than the road has.