Miyajima and Hiroshima — one of a series of shore days Japan Royal Service builds for residents and guests of The World.
The most photographed gate in Japan stands in the sea, and it is not fixed to the seabed. Sixteen and a half metres of camphor wood, held in place by nothing but its own weight and the six legs it stands on.
Twice a day the water goes out and you can walk to it. Twice a day the water comes in and the shrine behind it appears to float. Almost every visitor to Miyajima sees one of those two things, because almost every visitor comes for a few hours on a fixed schedule.
A ship in port for three days can see both.
Why the tide is the whole planning problem
Itsukushima Shrine was built out over the water on purpose. The island itself was held to be sacred — so sacred that for centuries commoners were not permitted to set foot on it, and the shrine had to be built on piles in the shallows so that worshippers approached without standing on holy ground. The current arrangement dates from 1168, when Taira no Kiyomori rebuilt it at the height of his family's power. UNESCO inscribed it in 1996.
The consequence is that the site has two completely different faces, and which one you get is decided by the moon rather than by you.
At high water the corridors stand in the sea, the reflections come up under the vermilion, and the great torii sits offshore in open water. This is the image the shrine exists to produce.
At low water the sea withdraws several hundred metres and you walk out across wet sand to stand underneath the gate. You can see the coins pressed into the joints of the legs by pilgrims, and the sheer scale of a structure that from the shore reads as elegant and from beneath reads as enormous.
Neither is better. They are two different buildings that occupy the same coordinates at different hours, and the timings shift by roughly fifty minutes a day. On a single day ashore you take whichever one the tide gives you. Over a three-day call, the tide table is a menu.
The hour the island belongs to almost nobody
Miyajima receives a very large number of day visitors, and they leave. The last of them are gone by evening, and what remains is a small island with a few hundred residents, a lit shrine, and deer that have had the run of the place for a thousand years.
The shrine is illuminated after dark. The reflection of a lit vermilion corridor in still black water is the reason people who know this island stay on it rather than visit it.
The mountain behind
Mount Misen rises behind the shrine and is part of the same World Heritage inscription — not as scenery, but because the primeval forest on it has never been cleared. A ropeway takes you most of the way. The view from the top is the Inland Sea reading as what it actually is: a drowned mountain range, with the summits standing out of the water as islands.
And the other thing Hiroshima is
Across the water, the city holds a second World Heritage site inscribed in the same year for the opposite reason. The Genbaku Dome was left standing exactly as the morning of 6 August 1945 left it.
We will not tell you how to approach that, and we do not package it. What we will say is that it is done properly with a guide who can hold the history without performing it, at a time of day when the memorial is not crowded, and with the freedom to leave when you have had enough. All three of those are functions of not being on a coach.
In the city there is also Shukkei-en, a garden laid out in 1620 for the lords of Hiroshima, rebuilt after the bomb, which is where residents go and visitors generally do not.
What we arrange
The day built around the tide table rather than around an office opening time, because here that is the only sensible way to plan. A private vessel or a private crossing where it suits. A guide for the memorial who is worth listening to. And, if the island holds you, the evening after the day visitors have gone.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you see the floating shrine and walk to the torii on the same day?
Sometimes, if the tides fall conveniently — but the timings shift by roughly fifty minutes each day and you do not get to choose. Over a call of several days it stops being luck and becomes a choice.
Is the great torii really not fixed to the seabed?
It stands on its own weight and its six legs. The present gate dates from 1875 and is the eighth on the site.
How do you handle the Peace Memorial?
With a guide who can hold the history without performing it, at an hour when it is not crowded, and with the freedom to leave when you have had enough. We do not package it and we do not put it on a fixed schedule.
More on this rotation
- One night as the lord of Ōzu Castle — Matsuyama
- The only imperial bath in Japan — Matsuyama
- Ritsurin Garden — Takamatsu
For residents and guests of The World
The ship lies at Hiroshima for days, not hours. That single fact changes more than anything else on this page. A place that opens three days a week stops being a gamble. An artisan can give you a whole afternoon instead of a demonstration. Nothing has to be cut short to fit a gangway.
We are a Japanese company, working in Japanese, with the people who own these places. The arrangements are made by someone the other side already knows.
Enquiries are handled privately and directly, at japanroyalservice.com/contact. We do not publish our clients, our itineraries, or our rates.
