Sagatoriimoto

Introduction

Saga Toriimoto lies in Okusaga, north of Arashiyama's busy circuit: a temple-town that grew along the Atago pilgrimage road. The torii in its name is the vermilion first gate at the end of the main street, the entrance to the approach climbing to Atago Shrine, head shrine of some 900 Atago shrines nationwide. Edo-period pilgrims turned a farming, forestry and fishing village into a row of teahouses, and today latticed machiya and thatched farmhouses line the slope; the district was designated an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings in 1979. Adashino Nenbutsu-ji divides it: machiya to the south, thatched farmhouses to the north, so the streetscape shifts from town to country as you walk. The four-century-old ayu teahouse Hiranoya and Tsutaya still operate, and a preserved early-Meiji machiya now serves as the townscape museum with its large stove and indoor well. Otagi Nenbutsu-ji's 1,200 Rakan statues sit to the north and Adashino's 8,000 stone Buddhas to the south.

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