Mie Hidden Gems

Mie exists in the national imagination mainly because of one institution. Ise Jingu is the shrine of the sun deity from whom the imperial line claims descent, and its inner and outer sanctuaries have been rebuilt from scratch on adjacent plots every twenty years for well over a millennium, most recently in 2013 — so what you walk up to is both ancient and, in timber terms, new. There is nothing to see in the usual sense: no visible main hall, no photography past a certain point, and the experience is a long gravel approach through cypress forest. The rest of the prefecture is a coastline of drowned valleys. Toba and Shima are where Mikimoto worked out how to culture pearls in the 1890s, and the ama free-divers who supplied the industry still work parts of the coast without tanks. South of that the Kii mountains rise steeply and wetly, carrying the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage trails toward Wakayama.