There's not much left of Candi Gampingan, but the bird, frog, and plant reliefs are so pretty they make the trip worthwhile all by themselves. Plus the route gives lovely views of the hills to the southeast of Yogya.

I guess there's not much left of the 19th-century water garden known as Warungboto either. But its ruined pools and arches and stairways make it highly photogenic.

Finding these places was not necessarily easy. We missed the turn-off for Candi Gampingan several times, and eventually had to be piloted in by a young lad who was off to join the nearby village cementing project. Likewise with Warungboto. The front is liberally festooned with barbed wire, and doesn't look like anything much. So, once more, we were on our third length of the very attractive Jl Veteran before we spotted it. To reach the entrance (at the back), you plunge down a precipitous little kampung road, and hope Rufus will be able to lug you back up again. Which he was...

Fully intact and easy to find, however, was our third stop, Gudeg Bu Tjitro 1925, which is housed in a spacious, pleasant old building. I feel I have to regularly indulge in this Yogyakarta signature product, and this version had everything a good gudeg requires: jackfruit, coconut gravy, marinated cow skin (krecek), tempe and soy beans, boiled egg, sambal, and steamed rice. Rounded off with one of my firm favourites, soda gembira. This, I am sure, is the drink of choice in the sweet, pink world that Hello Kitty inhabits. And every now and then, that's a world I need to visit.