AT A GLANCE

Why go?

Tucked into the old post-town of Shimoyama along the Fuji River, Ichinomiya Kamo Shrine (一宮賀茂神社) carries a name that tells you its standing at once: ichinomiya means "the first-ranked shrine," and here it was honored as the head of the seventeen shrines of the Kawachi domain. Founded in the Nara period around 750 by a branch of Kyoto's Kamigamo Shrine, it blends imperial and Kamo lineage in a quiet grove of cedars, oaks and sakaki a short drive from the great temple town of Minobu.↗↗↗

The shrine's story is bound up with the warlords who ruled this river country. The Takeda and Anayama clans revered it lavishly—the Takeda granting it a holding worth 3,500 mon and the Tokugawa later confirming its estate by vermilion-seal charter—while its hall of 1621, built by the celebrated Shimoyama carpenters, is now a town-designated cultural property. It is a small place with a deep pedigree, and it is open to all without charge.↗↗↗