Kashihara Jingu

Kashihara Jingu is younger than it looks. Nothing stood here until 1890, when the shrine was built at the southeast foot of Mount Unebi on the spot where the Nihon Shoki says Emperor Jimmu, the legendary first emperor, took the throne. Emperor Meiji gave it its main hall: the Kashikodokoro, or Naishidokoro, of the Kyoto Imperial Palace, built in 1855 and moved here in 1890. It is now an Important Cultural Property, but you will mostly see its roofline. Visitors pray at the big outer worship hall, and the main hall sits behind the inner one.

Scale is what you notice. The grounds cover about 530,000 square metres, and much of what you walk through dates from 1940, the year counted as the 2,600th since Jimmu's accession. The precincts were enlarged and the outer garden built by volunteer brigades, who turned out more than 1.2 million times over some 500 days; the outer worship hall went up then too. Knowing that changes how the long gravel avenues and unpainted cypress gates read. This is a national monument from a nationalist moment, and the shrine still holds its main festival, Kigensai, on 11 February, National Foundation Day.

It is also a pleasant place for a slow walk. On a weekday morning the plain wood and the empty forecourt are quiet, and Fukada Pond, south of the south gate, is about 49,500 square metres of water said to date from the Asuka period, with wild birds through the seasons. The tomb the Imperial Household Agency assigns to Jimmu is just north, across the prefectural road. New Year is another matter: in 2016 about a million people came in the first three days of January, more than anywhere else in Nara Prefecture.

The grounds are free. The treasure hall (700 yen) has swords and mirrors offered by the imperial family and a Yokoyama Taikan painting, and you can skip it if Meiji-era imperial gifts do not interest you. Imai-cho is two stops north on the Kintetsu line and Asuka a few minutes south on the Yoshino line, so it fits easily into a half day.