Mie

The principal sanctuaries here are taken down and rebuilt from new timber on an adjacent plot roughly every twenty years, and have been for well over a millennium. The site therefore holds two plots side by side, one occupied and one empty and waiting, and what you approach is simultaneously the oldest institution in the country and a structure that is only a few years old.

Understanding that in advance matters, because otherwise the visit can read as an anticlimax. There is no great hall on display, photography stops at a certain point, and the buildings are seen only in part from outside a fence. The experience is the long gravel approach through cypress forest, the river crossing, and the sense of an unbroken practice — not architecture you inspect. Go early, walk slowly, and do the outer sanctuary before the inner one, which is the order pilgrims have always used.

Two days, built around Ise. The shrine complex is two separate sanctuaries about six kilometres apart with a bus between them, and the approach street at the inner shrine is half the visit — that is a full day done properly. The pearl islands at Toba and the ria coast of Ago Bay are the second day, thirty to fifty minutes further along the line.

Three days lets you add either Iga, the ninja town inland, or the Kumano coast in the far south, which is a long way: Ise to Kumano is around two hours and the trip really belongs to a Wakayama itinerary rather than a Mie one.

Nagoya to Ise is about ninety minutes on the private express, Osaka roughly two hours. That proximity is the argument for coming: it is the most significant Shinto site in the country and it sits between two major cities.

Kintetsu does this prefecture better than JR. Limited express trains run from Osaka-Namba to Ise-shi in about an hour and three quarters and from Nagoya in about an hour and twenty minutes, continuing to Toba and Kashikojima. Between the outer and inner shrines at Ise you take a bus, about 15 minutes, and the two are too far apart to walk comfortably. Toba's pearl island and the aquarium are by the station. The southern Kumano coast is served by the JR Kisei line, which is slow and hugs the shore. Trailheads on the Kumano Kodo need local buses that run a few times a day, so build the timetable into the plan or drive.

The ria coastline south of the shrine is where pearl culturing was worked out in the 1890s, and it is also where a tradition of free-diving for shellfish and seaweed has continued for a very long time. The divers work on breath alone, without tanks, and the practice has historically been women's work passed down within coastal communities.

There are diving huts along the coast where you can sit by the fire with divers while they grill what they have brought up, and it is one of the more genuine encounters available anywhere in the country — small, unstaged, and usually needing a reservation a few days ahead. The numbers working are falling steeply as the community ages, so treat it as something to do now rather than later, and go for the conversation as much as the shellfish.

The New Year period at Ise, when the shrine receives an enormous domestic pilgrimage and the town is at capacity. Also the two-week Golden Week window, for the same reason in milder form.

Summer on the coast is hot and humid and the bay towns are busy; late summer into autumn brings typhoons to this Pacific-facing shore, which affects the boats around Ago Bay more than the shrine. The quiet, excellent window is late autumn and winter, when the cedar forest around the inner shrine is at its best and the oysters and lobster on the coast are in season.

The Kii peninsula is one of the wettest places in Japan and the southern mountains take enormous rainfall, especially in the June rainy season and during September typhoons — the Kumano Kodo trails become genuinely hazardous in heavy rain and are best walked in April, May, October or November. Ise is at its busiest at New Year, when millions come in the first days of January, and again over Golden Week. Summers are hot and humid above 33°C on the coast. Winters are mild, with January highs near 10°C and no real snow. Oysters run from November to March, and spiny lobster season opens in autumn.

Matsusaka beef comes from the town of the same name in the centre of the prefecture and is graded on marbling more strictly than most; the old restaurants there serve it as sukiyaki. Ise udon is the opposite of the usual — soft, thick noodles under a small pool of dark tamari, developed to be served fast to pilgrims. Tekone-zushi is bonito marinated in soy and folded through vinegared rice, a fisherman's dish from the Shima coast. Oysters are farmed in Matoya Bay and eaten from November, and Ise-ebi spiny lobster is the autumn extravagance.

The private railway from Nagoya and Osaka down to Ise, Toba and Kashikojima is fast, frequent and comfortable, and the local buses at the Ise end are timed to it. For the shrine, the pearl coast and the bay, no car is needed.

A car matters for the inland half — Iga, the mountain roads, the Kumano-facing south — and for the smaller coves along the ria coastline, which is beautiful and poorly served. Note that the southern part of the prefecture is genuinely remote by Kansai standards, with slow roads and thin services, and that combining it with Ise in a single day does not work.

A first visit is Ise, and the specific advice is to do the outer shrine before the inner one, in that order, as pilgrims have for centuries — it makes the sequence legible rather than arbitrary. The buildings are plain unpainted cypress, rebuilt to the same design every twenty years, and the surprise for most visitors is how unlike the ornate temples of Kyoto and Nikko they are. Give the approach street an hour and eat there.

A second visit should go to the sea. Ago Bay's drowned valleys, the pearl cultivation, and the women free-divers of the Shima peninsula who still work the shellfish beds are the other Mie, and none of it is on the pilgrimage route. Add Iga for the ninja museum, which is far more serious and more entertaining than it has any right to be.