Shiga Hidden Gems

Everything in Shiga is arranged around Lake Biwa, which fills a sixth of the prefecture and is old enough — around four million years — to have evolved species that exist nowhere else. The lake was the shipping route between the Sea of Japan coast and Kyoto, so the towns on its shores grew wealthy on transit rather than production, and Omi merchants became a byword for a particular style of long-distance trade. Hikone kept its original keep because the castle was never burned or dismantled, one of only a handful in the country. Above the southwestern shore, Mt. Hiei carries Enryakuji, the monastery that trained the founders of nearly every major Japanese Buddhist school and was destroyed by Nobunaga in 1571 for its military power. Because Kyoto is ten minutes away by train, Shiga is often treated as an annexe of it, which is why its lakeside shrines and castle towns stay quiet on days when Kyoto does not.