Nezu Shrine

Nezu Shrine's buildings date from 1706, and the unusual thing about them in Tokyo is that they are still there - the main hall, worship hall, gate and corridor survived the 1923 earthquake and the fires of 1945, which almost nothing else of that age in the city did, and the group is designated an important cultural property. The layout is gongen-zukuri, with the halls linked by a connecting chamber under one roof, and the paintwork is deep red and black. A slope beside the main hall carries a passage of about a thousand small vermilion torii, close-set enough to form a tunnel - the same form as Fushimi Inari and a fraction of the size, but without the crowd. The azalea garden on the hillside holds around three thousand plants of a hundred varieties and flowers through the middle of April, when a festival fills the grounds with stalls.

History

Established in 1705, the shrine is one of the oldest places of worship in Tokyo, built in the ishi-no-ma-zukuri style after the Tōshō-gū at Nikkō; several of its buildings are Important Cultural Properties, and it is one of the Tokyo Ten Shrines (Wikipedia, Nezu Shrine).

What to look for

• 1706 buildings - a gongen-zukuri group that survived 1923 and 1945 intact.
• A torii tunnel - about a thousand small vermilion gates up the slope.
• Three thousand azaleas - a hundred varieties on the hillside, flowering in mid-April.
• Original paintwork form - deep red and black on halls linked under one roof.

When to go

Mid-April for the azalea festival; all year otherwise. An hour.

Practical notes

The azalea garden is charged and crowded during the festival; outside it the slope is plain. The torii passage is short - a minute's walk. Festival stalls fill the grounds and change the atmosphere. There is little English signage.

Nearby

Yanaka is north-east; Ueno Park is east.

Key facts