Planning a trip with these cities and most likely will fly in and out of HND or NRT. Flights aren’t fully nailed down, but we’ll likely have 11-12 nights and this would be the first part of May after Golden Week.

Leaning toward arriving in Tokyo and spending 1-2 nights to adjust. Then train to Kanazawa for two nights, two nights in Takayama and then onto Kyoto, for 5-6 nights. Train/fly to Tokyo to fly out. Specifically, here are my questions:

We could do Kanazawa-Takayama-Kyoto in either order. Any benefit to which direction is best? For example, is Kyoto even more crowded on a weekend?

Does the number of nights in each place make sense? We could add to Kanazawa and Takayama, most likely taking time away from Kyoto.

Train or fly between Kanazawa and Tokyo?

As background, we’re seniors, prefer not to rent a car, like good food, scenery and places to walk/explore. Hoping the pace is reasonable and not too much moving around.