The Shrine at the End of Shijo-dori

Kyoto hits differently at dusk. The old imperial city—on the western side of Honshu, in the Kansai region, UNESCO-listed alongside Uji and Otsu—doesn’t announce itself. You turn a corner in Higashiyama-ku and there’s the Yasaka Shrine at the end of Shijo-dori, its vermilion gate rising over the street like a period at the end of a very long sentence.

The shrine has been there since 656 CE, built in the Gion-zukuri style and dedicated to Susano-no-o-mikoto—the storm god—and his wife Inada-hime-no-mikoto. Thirteen centuries of people arriving at this gate with their grief and gratitude and anxiety. In 869, the portable shrines—the omikoshi—were carried through the streets to combat a plague that was devastating the city. That procession became the Gion Matsuri, still held every July, one of the most recognized festivals in Japan.

Kyoto has over 1,600 temples and shrines scattered across it, which sounds overwhelming and is in fact overwhelming if you try to be systematic about it. But the Yasaka Shrine earns its reputation without effort. It sits in the Gion district, which means you walk past old wooden machiya townhouses to get there, every step sideways through time. I’ve been to plenty of places that were supposed to feel ancient and felt like sets. This doesn’t. Whatever weight has accumulated here over thirteen centuries, you can feel it standing in the courtyard as the light goes flat and the lanterns come on.