天橋立

Amanohashidate, or, the Bridge to Heaven, is another place I visited during my West coast of Japan adventure in the spring of 2007.  To get there, we took a bus from Kyoto Station. It took about 3 hours and we went through about 18 tunnels.

Here’s the Chirimen silk factory, with its sign welcoming visitors to Amanohashidate. The Tango peninsula is famous for its production of this type of crepe silk, which is used for fine kimono and other items.

In the Edo period, Shunsai Hayashi traveled the length of the country and considered Amanohashidate to be one of the three most beautiful views of Japan, otherwise known as 日本三景 (nihon sankei). The other two, in case you’re wondering, are Miyajima and Matsushima. Since then, they’ve been considered to be places that people should go and see at least once in their lifetime.

Massive pine trees, twisted by the wind, line the isthmus. Some of them are very old and have been given names. like the one pictured above.

There’s a neat rotating bridge on the southern end, here it is opened to let a barge pass through the tiny outlet.

 

You can take cable cars up either side of the bay to get both views of the bridge to heaven.

Looking toward the interior of the bay from the Northern side.

The view of Amanohashidate from the northern side, closest to our hostel (Amanohashidate Youth Hostel). Which I and my travelling partner highly recommend, with their fantastic western-style breakfast (they alternated between western-style and Japanese while we were there… the Japanese breakfast was OK, but we really REALLY liked the heart-shaped eggs).

 

Heart-shaped eggs!! And not-so-heart-shaped eggs… but still good.

♪～(´ε｀ )

People say that if you look at Amanohashidate upside-down, you will see a bridge to heaven. So, I tried it.

Hmm. maybe not from this side.

I still don’t know... what do you think?