Itsukushima Shrine

The shrine is built on stilts over the water because the island it stands on was itself the object of worship, and ordinary people were not supposed to set foot on it. Pilgrims arrived by boat, passed under the torii and moored at the shrine, and for centuries no birth or death was permitted on Miyajima at all. Building on piles above the tideline was a way of being present without trespassing.

Taira no Kiyomori gave the shrine its present form in 1168, corridors of vermilion pillars linking halls that appear to float at high tide and sit on wet sand at low. Both states are worth seeing and they are not the same experience: check a tide table before deciding when to come, because a shrine surrounded by mud flats is a different photograph from one on the sea.

The great torii, about 16 metres tall, is the ninth on the site and dates from 1875. It is not sunk into the seabed. It stands on its own weight, with the crossbeam packed with stones for ballast, and four smaller pillars, two in front and two behind, bracing it. A four-year restoration finished at the end of 2022, so the paint is fresh.

Two things most day-trippers miss. Daisho-in, up the hill behind the village, is a Shingon temple with hundreds of small stone figures and almost no crowd. And Mount Misen, 535 metres, reached by ropeway or a two-hour climb, has a flame in its hall said to have burned since Kobo Daishi lit it 1,200 years ago; it was used to light the flame at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.

Ferries run from Miyajimaguchi every fifteen minutes. Shrine entry is around 300 yen, plus a small island visitor levy. Deer wander everywhere and will take food out of a bag.