The two stone-paved slopes of Ninen-zaka ("two-year slope") and Sannen-zaka ("three-year slope") connect the temples of Kiyomizu-dera and Kōdai-ji through one of the best-preserved fragments of Edo-period Kyoto. Wooden machiya townhouses, tea houses, sweet shops, and small workshops line the slopes on both sides; nearly every visible building is a designated Important Preservation District property and any new construction must conform to a strict historic-character code — which is why the modern shops you pass are still housed in old wood and tile.
Walk uphill toward Kiyomizu from Yasaka in late afternoon, when the lanterns come on and the day-trippers thin out. Both slopes have a local-superstition name: tradition holds that anyone who falls on the way down will have their life shortened (by two or three years respectively, depending on which slope). The combination of the lanes with the Yasaka Pagoda on the skyline is the canonical "old Kyoto" view.