Himuro Shrine

Himuro Shrine is a small but charming Shinto shrine on the western fringe of Nara Park, directly opposite the Nara National Museum, and it holds a rather unusual place in the city's affections. Established in 710, the same year the capital moved to Nara, it enshrines Tsugenoinagi Oyamanushi no Mikoto together with Emperor Nintoku and Prince Nukata no Onakatsuhiko no Mikoto. The shrine's founding legend is charmingly specific: Tsugenoinagi is remembered as the folk figure who discovered how to preserve ice, and the prince who learned the method from him carried it to the imperial court. Himuro means ice house, and the shrine was historically associated with the storage of winter ice for the palace, which is why it is still visited today by people in the ice, refrigeration and cold-storage trades who come to pray for good business.

What draws most visitors, though, is a tree. Himuro Shrine is celebrated across Nara for its magnificent shidarezakura, a weeping cherry that is traditionally one of the very first cherry trees in the whole city to burst into bloom each spring. Locals call it the tree that announces the season, and in a good year, in the last days of March, its cascade of pale pink flowers opens while the great cherry groves of Nara Park are still tightly in bud. For photographers and blossom-chasers, that head start makes the shrine a coveted early-season stop, and its modest grounds fill with quiet admirers when the tree is at its peak.

The shrine itself is compact and can be enjoyed in 20 to 25 minutes. A stone torii and a short flight of steps lead up to a tidy precinct with a handsome worship hall, stone lanterns and, of course, the famous cherry. Compared with the grandeur of Kasuga Taisha or the scale of Todai-ji just up the road, Himuro is intimate and unpretentious, and it is completely free to enter, which makes it an easy and pleasant addition to any walk between the town centre and the park.

The shrine's main annual festival is held on October 1, but for most travellers the reason to seek it out is the cherry blossom in early spring; outside the blossom season it is a peaceful, minor stop rather than a headline sight. Its position could hardly be more convenient: it sits right on the main pedestrian route into Nara Park, so you will very likely pass its torii on the way to the bigger attractions, and it costs nothing to step inside for a few minutes.

To reach Himuro Shrine, walk about 12 minutes east from Kintetsu Nara Station toward the park, keeping an eye out for the torii opposite the Nara National Museum. It is not served directly by a JR line and so is not covered by the Japan Rail Pass, but as a free shrine in the heart of walking Nara that hardly matters. Time your visit for late March, and you may catch the first cherry blossoms of the season in the old capital.