3 discoveries
A grand, bustling temple on the edge of Tokyo — home to a five-story pagoda, clouds of fragrant incense, and a shopping street where shopkeepers chop herbal candy in rhythmic time.
A vast, thousand-year-old temple complex minutes from Narita Airport — pagodas, a great main hall, fire rituals, and a long approach street of grilled-eel restaurants — the perfect first or last stop in Japan.
A thousand stone steps climb through cedar forest and rock to a cliffside temple where the poet Bashō once paused — the reward is a wooden hall clinging to the precipice and a view straight down the green valley.
