Miyajima Travel Guide

Itsukushima Shrine, on Miyajima island in Hiroshima Prefecture, is one of Japan's most celebrated World Heritage sites, famed for its gigantic vermilion torii gate standing in the Seto Inland Sea. At high tide the gate appears to float on the water, framing a sacred picture with Mount Misen's ancient forest and roaming deer; at low tide you can walk to its base and study the pillars and tidal life. The shrine's corridors follow the tides, and at night the lit reflections on the water are dreamlike. Revered as the island of the gods, it is best reached by ferry, stroll the approach with the deer and feel millennia of faith meeting nature.