Fushimi Inari Shrine 伏見稲荷大社
Endless red shrine gates leading up the mountain
If you’ve glanced at any tourism literature before coming to Japan, you’ll have seen an iconic image of a line-up of vermilion (orange) torii Shinto shrine gates fading into the distance - we’ve used one for this Kyōto section!
Well, that’s taken at Fushimi Inari Taisha in southeastern Kyōto, and is one of the most recognisable images of Japan.
There are 1000s and 1000s of the vermilion gates straddling a network of trails behind the shrine’s main buildings, leading up through wooded forest to the top of sacred Mt Inari (233m).
While the approach to the shrine and the main buildings are attractive in their own right, the thrill here is to walk up through the trails of gates. If you hike up all the way and do the loop trail at the top, you’ll be walking around 5km return - allow 2-3 hours. You can turn back at any time.
Fushimi Inari is a taisha, a ‘Grand Shrine’, as opposed to a jinja (shrine).