Itsukushima Jinja (chief shinto shrine) on Miyajima

Again a sight which has been added to the UNESCO world heritage ‘collection’ i need to look how many of them are in Japan – i think we have passed already a few of them (also in China.)… The first shrine buildings on Miyajima had been erected in the 6th century. The present version dates from mid 16th century. Thus it is either by co-incidence or not that it is about 16m high and truly impressive if the sun intensifies the bright color. The view of the gate with the island’s Mt. Misen in the back is allegedly one of the ‘three views of Japan’. The difficult part of this sight is actually only the tide – besides the fact to first figure out which train you have to take – because the nicest it looks at high tide. On the day of our visit, hight tide was at 07:00h, thus we made it there around 10:15h which was just ok.. but water was already drifting away. Still we managed to make pictures without anybody walking on the beach and without all the seaweed. Instead we could include a newly married couple in our ‘shots’.