Nonomiya Shrine

A small shrine at the southern entrance to the Arashiyama bamboo path, and the reason it is here is specific. Unmarried imperial princesses chosen to serve at Ise Grand Shrine spent a year in seclusion at a temporary shrine in this area, purifying themselves before making the journey. The site moved each time a new princess was appointed, and the practice ran for centuries until it ended in the fourteenth century.

The torii is worth pausing at. It is a kuroki no torii, made from logs with the bark left on, which is the oldest and simplest form of the gate and now very rare. Wood this untreated does not last, so it is replaced regularly, and the shrine is one of the few places that still keeps to the original method.

Inside is a small moss garden with a stream, meant to represent the Bay of Ise, and a rounded stone called Kame-ishi, the turtle stone. The custom is to rub it while making a wish, which is supposed to be granted within a year. It gets rubbed a great deal.

Chapter ten of the Tale of Genji is set here, when Genji visits the Rokujo lady before she leaves for Ise, and the scene made the place a literary pilgrimage long before it became a photograph stop.

Free, and open all day. The shrine is now known mainly for matchmaking and for study charms, so the queue at the wish-writing counter can be long. It is small, and busy, and takes ten minutes. Come at dawn with the bamboo path and it is a different place entirely.