So they're almost spaces that people were coming into and processing into the centre of the monument and it would have been quite a special inner sanctuary from the wider landscape.
It resides amid the whispering leaves and the ethereal light of the Bamboo Forest of Arashiyama, and in the Zen-like calm of the city’s resident monkeys.
When you're finished exploring the Old City's architectural highlights, you'll discover endless moments of bliss down the cities alleyways and laneways too.
The Thai capital, Bangkok, sits more than 1,000km (621 miles) from the epicentre of Friday's earthquake - and yet an unfinished high-rise building in the city was felled by it.
A particular treat is a 32-point list of instructions for staff at Polpo, one of five London restaurants run by Russell Norman, which serves cicchetti (Venetian side dishes).
Courtiers, politicians and constitutional theorists such as Walter Bagehot worried about the dismal sight of the Empress of India trooping around Windsor in her donkey cart.