A sweaty, but unforgettable, visit to Kompirasan.
The streets called sando are a unique part of Japanese cityscapes. Sando are the paths that lead to shrines and temples, and because visitors often have secular needs and desires too, they’re often lined with restaurants, cafes, and souvenir shops.
And while you will find those things on the path you walk along the way to the main building of Shinto shrine Kompirasan in Kagawa Prefecture, its approach also has something that many others don’t: 785 stone steps for you to climb to get there.
For this vertical-component shrine walk, we’re headed to the town of Kotohira, and in fact Kompirasan’s official, formal name is Kotohiragu. After getting off the train at Kotohira Station (pictured above), it’s about a 10-minute walk to the start of Kompira Omotesando, as this sando is called.
▼ Walking route from Kotohira Station to the start of Kompira Omotesando
Sure enough, right away we started seeing shops and restaurants with banners inviting us in for locally made manju dumplings filled with sweet bean paste or some of Kagawa Prefecture’s famous Sanuki udon noodles. We also walked by a hot spring bathhouse with a free-to-use outdoor foot bath.
The most unusual thing we spotted, though, were buckets filled with walking sticks, which could be rented for 100 yen (US$0.65), with payment and return performed on the honor system.
▼ For this rental stand, you put your 100-yen coin into one of the red piggy banks.
Of course, saving 100 yen here would mean 100 yen more for us to spend on things like Pokémon merch, so we kept our wallet closed and our feet moving.
The first 100 steps or so were no sweat…or at least not very much sweat. Early on, the ascent to Kompirasan still feels like a stroll in a charming, laidback countryside-adjacent neighborhood. It wasn’t until we stopped and looked back that we saw how far up into the foothills of Mt. Zozu we’d risen, with a nice view of the city’s downtown area spreading out in the distance.
After this, though, perspiration would become a persistent theme. The temperature on the day we visited was over 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit), and in stretches of the path that were devoid of shade, it felt like we were being baked from both above and below as the sun heated up the stone steps.
Thankfully, landmarks along the way, like the stately Daimon gate pictured above at Step 365, gave us visually stimulating rewards that helped keep our minds off of things like the steadily increasing dampness of the face towel that we kept wiping ourselves off with.
This isn’t to say that Kompirasan’s approach is a grueling, mountain climb-caliber physical ordeal. It’s definitely a workout, though, and, as you can see in our pictures, we passed by many wise individuals who were sporting parasols to keep the sun off of themselves.
Doing the entire ascent in one continuous spurt in this heat isn’t advisable, so when we did spot patches of shade along the way, we regularly took the opportunity to stop, rest, and rehydrate from the water bottle we’d brought with us.
Further up the mountain, we arrived at Asahi Shrine, which has the unusual distinction of having been built as a Buddhist temple, and later converted to a Shinto shrine. The two religions exist as a pretty harmonious tandem in Japan, and both parts of Asahi Shrine’s cultural legacy are recognized and celebrated.
▼ The 25-meter (82-foot) tall Asahi Shrine is one of the largest wooden structures in the region, and the color of its copper-plated roof provides another shade of photogenic green to contrast with the trees around it.
▼ Asahi Shrine’s covered rest area is a good spot to sit and rest your legs for a bit.
As pretty as Asahi Shrine is, though, we weren’t done walking yet. Following the signs that point on to the Kompirasan main shrine building (御本宮)…
…we once again came to the stone steps, with a sign declaring:
“Just a little more to go! 133 steps left until the main shrine building! Make it to the top, and happiness and blessings will come to you!”
In other words, we’d already made it up 652 steps, so another 133 couldn’t be so ba-
Ah, OK, so when they said 133 steps, they meant 133 very steep steps.
But hey, blessings and happiness sounded pretty nice, so we took a deep breath, took a step, then took 132 more steps, and finally…
…we made it!
The view from up at the main shrine building is especially beautiful on a sunny day like this, allowing you to take in all the layers of towns, farmland, and mountains between you and the horizon. Also a beautiful sight: the covered tent with mist sprayers that had been set up in the shrine’s courtyard.
Kompirasan’s main hall enshrines Omononushi no Kami, the deified spirit of Emperor Sutoku, who reigned in the 12th century. Omononushi no Kami is a well-rounded spirit, and praying at the shrine is said to impart blessings related to health, seafaring, business, and agriculture.
▼ The main shrine building
▼ With so many blessings to provide, Kompirasan has an especially wide selection of good luck amulets that visitors can purchase.
The walk up to the main shrine takes about 45 minutes, not counting any rests or breaks along the way. After admiring the scenery and soaking up the atmosphere, we started our descent back into town, and this was when we started to regret not renting a walking stick at the bottom. There aren’t really any handrails along the steps, and especially on the way down, it can be pretty tiring on your knees and other joints.
▼ It turns out that 100-yen stick rental fee would have been a good investment.
All in all, though, this is definitely a walk worth taking if you’re in Kagawa, and given the easy access by train, it’s very easy to fold into a trip around the island of Shikoku, which Kagawa makes up the northeastern corner of. If you can plan your visit for sometime other than midsummer, though, we’d definitely recommend doing so.
Reference: Kotohiragu and Kotohira official tourism website
Photos ©SoraNews24
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