We left the Tamozawa Imperial Villa at close to 2PM and slowly made our way to the Toshogu Shrine area. Our host at Stay Nikko Guesthouse had earlier on advised that we should take the bus to get to the Villa, and once there, we can turn around to gradually make our way to the other places of visitation. How’s that? Well, from the Nikko train stations to the Villa, it’s basically a gentle sloping uphill through. Sure, you could walk the stretch: it’d take around 20-25 minutes, but you would be better served just to do the downhill walk instead when you’ve visited the Villa.
The Villa to the Shrine is about a 10 minutes walk, so pretty manageable. The Shrine is a memorial to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate whose clan ruled Japan for over 250 years until 1868. There is an admission fee required to enter the compound, so we were contend to just check things out on the outside.
A quick look around the Toshogu Shrine area done. The next place of visitation was Shoyoen Garden, but our guesthouse host advised that there’s not much to see in the Garden in winter, so we took her advice and dropped the post – and walked the about 7 minutes towards Shinkyo Bridge.
The bridge is regarded as one of Japan’s three most finest, and the pictures of it against autumn foliage does indeed make it look very pictureseque. Unfortunately in winter, and also coupled with the late afternoon we were at around the area, made for a visibly less stellar visual record. An admission fee is required to access the bridge. Being the cheapos we are, we declined to pay the fee and just ogled it from the vehicular bridge instead.
Our itinerary for Day 11 in Central Nikko completed, it was a pleasant if chilly at 7 degree celsius walk back to the hotel for some rest before we ventured out again for dinner. Continued in the next post for Day 12 and our visit to Nikko Edo Wonderland!