We recently took a break in Japan and spent time traveling to a few of Japan’s cultural treasures. We visited the island of Miyajima in Hiroshima Prefecture, as well as Kyoto and our annual visit to Fukushima. I have many images from this trip to share, starting today with the area around Itsukushima Jinja (Shrine) and it’s famous floating torii (Shinto gateway in front of all shrines).

Photos of Japan: The floating “torii” (gate) at Itsukushima Shrine, Miyajima

The shrine and the forested slopes of Mt Misen directly behind it are listed as World Heritage. Miyajima is only a 15 minute ferry trip from the train station Miyajimaguchi which is around 30 minutes from central Hiroshima. It is easy to visit as a day trip but we spent a couple of nights in order to have a proper exploration!

Streets and shops at night on Miyajima

It is well worth staying a night or two as the island is an incredibly popular tourist destination, and most visitors are day-trippers. In particular if you would like to take photos, the evenings and mornings will be the best opportunity as there are significantly less people around – even the deer make themselves scarce overnight!

A deer on Miyajima. They are well and truly used to people and you will most likely find that one sneaks up on you trying to pinch paper out of your hands or rummage through your bags!

The torii is lit up at night and makes a great subject for photos

Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima. The shrine is located right on the seaside so the scenery changes quite a lot with the tides.

The shrine itself costs only 500 yen (ie less than $6) to enter. It doesn’t take long to wander from one end to the other and it is a great Japanese experience.

Inside Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima

Inside Itsukushima Shrine

Lanterns decorate the entire length of the shrine.

There will be many posts coming in the next couple of weeks from our travels in Japan so stay tuned!