Places to seeWhere to go in Mie
Start with the first of these. Each is worth half a day.
Mie三重県
Mie holds the most important shrine in Japan, and it is not what visitors expect a great shrine to look like.
Mie holds the most important shrine in Japan, and it is not what visitors expect a great shrine to look like.
Start with the first of these. Each is worth half a day.
Ise Jingu has no gold, no vermilion and no crowd of buildings — it is plain unpainted cypress in a forest, beside a clear river you cross by wooden bridge.
It is rebuilt from scratch every twenty years, on the empty plot beside the one it stands on, using the same methods each time. The building is always new and the design is fourteen hundred years old. The street leading to it, Okage Yokocho, is where you eat.
Getting in: No airport — from Nagoya by limited express, about 1h 20m to Ise. Kansai Airport by bus
Pick the season first and the days will arrange themselves.
Mild and green. The shrine forest is at its best, and the coast is calm.
Wet in June. Hot on the coast, and the sea is warm from July.
October and November are dry and clear — the best months.
Cold and quiet. New Year is the shrine’s busiest week — come for it, or come from the fourth of January.
