Tsuru no Maihashi

Three timber arches in a row across a reservoir, three hundred metres end to end, built in 1994 from three thousand logs and three thousand planks of Aomori hiba cypress — the longest wooden triple-arch bridge in Japan. The reservoir it crosses is called Tsugaru Fujimi-ko, the lake with a view of the Tsugaru Fuji, and on a still morning Mt. Iwaki stands behind the bridge and repeats itself upside down in the water.

That combination — three dark timber arches, a symmetrical volcano, and both of them doubled in still water — is the reason the bridge became briefly famous nationally after appearing in an advertisement. It remains almost unvisited by anyone from outside the prefecture. There is a park at one end and a crane sanctuary at the other, free to enter, with actual red-crowned cranes in it.