Kamakura

Modern Kamakura revolves around its central train station and a couple of touristy streets leading to the town’s most important shrine, Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū. The traditional approach to this grand edifice lies along Wakamiya-ōji, which runs straight from the sea to the shrine entrance. Shops here peddle a motley collection of souvenirs and crafts, the most famous of which is kamakura-bori, an 800-year-old method of laying lacquer over carved wood. More popular, however, is hato, a pigeon-shaped French-style biscuit first made by Toshimaya bakers a century ago. You can buy them all over town, but walk up Wakamiya-ōji to find their main shop with telltale ironwork pigeons on the outside, halfway along. Shadowing Wakamiya-ōji to the west is Komachi-dōri, a narrow, pedestrian-only shopping street, packed with more souvenir shops, restaurants and, increasingly, trendy boutiques.

Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū

A majestic, vermilion-lacquered torii marks the front entrance to Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū (鶴岡八幡宮), the Minamoto clan’s guardian shrine since 1063. Hachiman-gū, as it’s popularly known, was moved to its present site in 1191, since when it has witnessed some of the more unsavoury episodes of Kamakura history. Most of the present buildings date from the early nineteenth century, and their striking red paintwork, combined with the parade of souvenir stalls and the constant bustle of people, creates a festive atmosphere in sharp contrast to that of Kamakura’s more secluded Zen temples.

Three humpback bridges lead into the shrine compound between two connected ponds known as Genpei-ike. These were designed by Minamoto Yoritomo’s wife, Hōjō Masako, and are full of heavy, complicated symbolism, anticipating the longed-for victory of her husband’s clan over their bitter enemies, the Taira; strangely, the bloodthirsty Masako was of Taira stock. The Mai-den, an open-sided stage at the end of a broad avenue, was the scene of another unhappy event in 1186, when Yoritomo forced his brother’s mistress, Shizuka, to dance for the assembled samurai. Yoritomo wanted his popular brother, Yoshitsune, killed and was holding Shizuka prisoner in the hope of discovering his whereabouts; instead, she made a defiant declaration of love and only narrowly escaped death herself, though her newborn son was murdered soon after. Her bravery is commemorated with classical dances and nō plays during the shrine festival (Sept 14–16), which also features demonstrations of horseback archery on the final day.

Beyond the Mai-den, a long flight of steps leads up beside a knobbly, ancient ginkgo tree, reputedly 1000 years old and scene of the third shogun’s murder by his vengeful nephew, to the main shrine. It’s an attractive collection of buildings set among trees, though, as with all Shinto shrines, you can only peer in. Appropriately, the principal deity, Hachiman, is the God of War.

The Hōmotsu-den in a corridor immediately left of the shrine, contains a missable exhibition of shrine treasures. Instead, head back down the steps and turn left to find the beautifully restrained, black-lacquered Shirahata-jinja, dedicated to the first and third Kamakura shoguns, then take the path south to the modern Kamakura National Treasure Hall (鎌倉国宝館). This one-room museum is noted for its collection of Kamakura- and Muromachi-period art (1192–1573), mostly gathered from local Zen temples. Unfortunately, only a few of the priceless pieces are on display at any one time.

The eastern side of Kamakura contains a scattering of less-visited shrines and temples, including two of the town’s most enchanting corners. Though it’s possible to cover the area on foot in a half-day (less if you hop on a bus for the return journey), by far the best way to explore these scattered locations is to rent a bicycle.

If you’re starting from Hachiman-gū, you can work your way eastwards through a quiet suburban area north of the main highway, the Kanazawa-kaidō, until you find signs indicating an optional left turn for Kamakura-gū (鎌倉宮). Mainly of interest for its history and torchlight nō dramas in early October, this was founded by Emperor Meiji in 1869 to encourage support for his new imperial regime. The shrine is dedicated to Prince Morinaga, a forgotten fourteenth-century hero who was held for nine months in a Kamakura cave before being executed. The small cave and a desultory treasure house lie to the rear of the classically styled shrine, but don’t really justify the entry fee.

A road heading north from Kamakura-gū marks the beginning – or end – of the short cut to the Ten’en Hiking Course, though the main trail starts 900m further east, near Zuisen-ji (瑞泉寺). The temple’s fourteenth-century Zen garden, to the rear of the main building, is rather dilapidated, but the quiet, wooded location and luxuriant gardens in front of the temple make it an attractive spot.

From here you have to drop south and join the main road for the last short stretch to one of Kamakura’s oldest temples, Sugimoto-dera (杉本寺), at the top of a steep, foot-worn staircase lined with fluttering white flags. Standing in a woodland clearing, the small, thatched temple, founded in 734, exudes a real sense of history. Inside its smoke-blackened hall, spattered with pilgrims’ prayer stickers, you can slip off your shoes and take a look behind the altar at the three wooden statues of Jūichimen Kannon, the eleven-faced Goddess of Mercy. The images were carved at different times by famous monks, but all three are at least 1000 years old.

Just a couple of minutes further east along Kanazawa-kaidō, turn right over a small bridge to reach the entrance to Hōkoku-ji (報国寺), or Take-dera, the “Bamboo Temple”. The well-tended gardens and simple wooden buildings are attractive in themselves, but the temple is best known for a grove of evergreen bamboo protected by the encircling cliffs.

The west side of Kamakura, an area known as Hase (長谷), is home to the town’s most famous sight, the Daibutsu (Great Buddha), cast in bronze nearly 750 years ago. On the way, it’s worth visiting Hase-dera to see an image of Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy, which is said to be Japan’s largest wooden statue.

Hase-dera (長谷寺) stands high on the hillside a few minutes’ walk north of Hase Station, with good views of Kamakura and across Yuigahama beach to the Miura peninsula beyond. Though the temple’s present layout dates from the mid-thirteenth century, according to legend it was founded in 736, when a wooden eleven-faced Kannon was washed ashore nearby. The statue is supposedly one of a pair carved from a single camphor tree in 721 by a monk in the original Hase, near Nara; he placed one Kannon in a local temple and pushed the other out to sea.

Nowadays the Kamakura Kannon – just over 9m tall and gleaming with gold leaf (a fourteenth-century embellishment) – resides in an attractive, chocolate-brown and cream building at the top of the temple steps. This central hall is flanked by two smaller buildings: the right hall houses a large Amidha Buddha carved in 1189 for Minamoto Yoritomo’s 42nd birthday to ward off the bad luck traditionally associated with that age; the one on the left shelters a copy of an early fifteenth-century statue of Daikoku-ten, the cheerful God of Wealth. The real one is in the small treasure hall  immediately behind, alongside the original temple bell, cast in 1264. The next building along is the Sutra Repository, where a revolving drum contains a complete set of Buddhist scriptures – one turn of the wheel is equivalent to reading the whole lot. Ranks of Jizō statues are a common sight in Hase-dera, some clutching sweets or “windmills” and wrapped in tiny woollen mufflers; these sad little figures commemorate stillborn or aborted children. Finally, a cave in the far northern corner of the complex contains statues of the goddess Benten and her sixteen children, or disciples, though it can’t compete with the atmospheric setting of the Zeniarai Benten cave-shrine.

The Daibutsu

From Hase-dera, turn left at the main road and follow the crowds north for a few hundred metres to find the Daibutsu (大仏), in the grounds of Kōtoku-in temple. After all the hype, the Great Buddha can seem a little disappointing, but as you approach, and his serene, rather aloof face comes into view, the magic begins to take hold. He sits on a stone pedestal, a broad-shouldered figure lost in deep meditation, with his head slightly bowed, his face and robes streaked grey-green by centuries of sun, wind and rain. The 13m-tall image represents Amida Nyorai, the future Buddha who receives souls into the Western Paradise, and was built under the orders of Minamoto Yoritomo to rival the larger Nara Buddha, near Kyoto. Completed in 1252, the statue is constructed of bronze plates bolted together around a hollow frame and evidence suggests that, at some time, it was covered in gold leaf. Amazingly, it has withstood fires, typhoons, tidal waves and even the Great Earthquake of 1923.