Nikko

Although northern Japan has beautiful forests, lakes, volcanoes and crabs, it definitely lacks the magnificent Shrines and Temples of the south. I think this is meant to be due to the relatively late colonisation of Northern Honshu and Hokkaido. So, to get our fix of Shriney-Templey things we decided to stop off the Shinkansen line just north of Tokyo, at the mountainous town of Nikko.

This is a really small place, very prettily located along a mountain river in the middle of forested peaks. It is mainly visited as it houses one of the most spectacular Shrine complexes in Japan – Tosho-gu. It was built following the death of one of the most powerful Shoguns in the 17th century, and made infinitely glitzier several years later by his grandson. Like most Japanese monuments its made completely of wood, but I think unlike most it hasn’t burnt down 5 or 6 times only to be reconstructed!

Anyway, the place is completely over the top! We haven’t seen this much gold and glitz since the lights of Macau’s casinos. Plus it’s a huge shrine complex, complete with mammoth prayer gates and a five storey Pagoda. And despite all the gilt it does look nice (lots of good dragons carved into the buildings), and it has a lovely location in a dense pine wood on the side of the mountain. Perhaps the nicest thing about the place is that Tosho-gu is only one of many shrine complexes in the immediate area around Nikko. This means you can escape the hordes of school children (with matching colour coded hats for each school) in the main area and wander through the pine glades to suddenly come across another impressive temple or Pagoda.

The downside to Nikko is that it closes a tad early. We researched this in advance, reading up in the Rough Guide like good tourists. We were reliably informed that the restaurants would be closed by 8pm, so we thought we’d get an early dinner by 6pm. Only to find that all the restaurants were closed! The place was a very pretty ghost town. We eventually did find somewhere (after about a mile of walking), and then returned to our hotel for a traditional Japanese bath, (which was so hot we nearly passed out after all the walking).