Kofu's Quiet Shrines, and the Bus Up to Shosenkyo Gorge

Kofu sits in a bowl of mountains in Yamanashi, an easy ride west of Tokyo. The highway bus between Shinjuku and Kofu Station is twenty-five hundred yen each way for adults, and the trip takes about two hours and ten minutes.

Most visitors who make that trip are headed for wine country or the mountains. This guide is for a different kind of day: a slow circuit of the city's shrines, most of them tied in one way or another to the Takeda family, ending with the valley road that climbs to Shosenkyo gorge.

The shrine on the site of the lords' residence

Takeda Shrine stands on the site of Tsutsujigasaki-yakata, the residence where three generations of the Kai Takeda lords conducted their government. The shrine itself is younger than it feels: it was founded in nineteen nineteen, and it enshrines the warlord Takeda Shingen.

What makes the visit worthwhile is how much of the old residence is still legible. The moat still holds water, and stretches of stone wall and an old well remain in the grounds. You cross a vermilion bridge to enter, and the woods around you were assembled from several hundred kinds of trees donated from across the prefecture when the shrine was established, so the grounds shift with the seasons.

Shingen is remembered here not only as a commander but as a governor who managed rivers and mines, and the shrine is associated with luck in contests. The main sanctuary is built in the nagare style. In the grounds there is also a stage, the Koyo Bunoden, where noh and kagura are performed, and the shrine's yabusame is counted among the three great horseback archery rites of Japan, alongside those of Kamakura and Kyoto.

The treasure hall keeps the Furinkazan banner, helmets, armor, and swords connected with the Takeda house. Admission for an adult is five hundred yen. For a child of elementary or junior high school age it is two hundred and fifty yen. The outer grounds themselves you can walk into at any time of day.

Getting there is simple: from the north exit of Kofu Station, the bus up to Takeda Shrine is two hundred and thirty yen each way. It stops directly in front of the shrine.

A shrine that looks the old castle in the eye

Atago Shrine was established by the Takeda family, and after the house fell it was given a second duty: guarding the northeast quarter, the demon gate, of the newly built Kofu Castle.

The grounds were laid out at the same height as the castle's keep, so from the shrine you look across at the castle site level with where its tower once stood. It is one of the quieter vantage points in the city, and the view explains the town below better than any map.

Three deities are enshrined here: Kagutsuchi, god of fire, together with Takeminakata and Yamato Takeru. The shrine is said to be strong in warding off misfortune from unlucky directions, in matters of contest, and in protection from fire, and to give a push to people trying to work their way out of a hard patch.

The stone stairway up passes under a torii partway along. If stairs are not your thing, a sloping lane on the left side of the grounds lets you arrive by car instead.

Two more shrines in the old town

Kai Kokusoja Hachiman Shrine was founded in fifteen ninety-five as a protector on the north side of Kofu Castle. The castle went up after the Takeda house had already fallen, but the shrine's roots are older: its deity was moved from an earlier Hachiman shrine that stood west of Tsutsujigasaki, and the shrine crest is the Takeda diamond. After the Meiji Restoration it was ranked first among the prefecture's shrines.

Its best-known moment comes in February, with the yudate rite: hot water is scattered over the gathered worshippers with green bamboo leaves as a prayer against illness, accompanied by a dance of Sarutahiko. It is held to be the only yudate rite in the prefecture that still keeps its dance. Blessings asked for here run from household safety to long life and safe childbirth. The grounds can be visited at any time of day.

Tamamoro Shrine, in the eastern part of the city, holds the rank of third shrine of the old province of Kai. Its deity is Kunitama-no-Okami, and its founding is placed around the middle of the second century. The name is explained by a story: a jewel was buried in the earth here, and the cedar planted over it came to be called the jewel-chamber cedar. People come to ask for protection from epidemics, for children, for safe childbirth, and against misfortune on the water. The grounds can be visited at any time.

Anagiri, and the lake that used to be here

Anagiri Daijinja, west of the center, is dated to the Wado era, in the early years of the eighth century. Its main deity is Onamuchi, and it gathers several gods of matchmaking under one roof, so people come here to cut bad ties, to form good ones, and to pray for health and for children.

The name itself carries the city's founding legend. The character for "cut" refers to the story that the Kofu basin was once a lake, and that a god cut through the mountains to the south to drain the water and win the rich land beneath. The shrine's goshuin styles the deity as the god who cut open the land of Kai.

The main sanctuary, roofed in cypress bark with fitted metal doors, is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property. In the grounds stands a sacred tree with a forked trunk called the child-blessing tree. The one standing now is the second generation; the first was reckoned to be about a thousand years old when a typhoon brought it down in nineteen ninety-one, and part of that older trunk is kept in the grounds, so you can pay respects to the old tree and the new one together. The shrine tells of many worshippers who were granted children, including two families who asked for three children and welcomed triplets.

There is a lighter side, too. The goshuin carries the Takeda diamond and the yatagarasu crow, with matching books in three colors, and the shrine has become known as a soccer shrine: a goal stands in the grounds, and on match days supporters of Ventforet Kofu come in uniform to pray for a win.

Sumiyoshi, a short walk from a small-line stop

South of the center, in the neighborhood that shares its name, Sumiyoshi Shrine is dated by tradition to the Tenpyo era of the Nara period. Four deities are enshrined: the three Sumiyoshi gods, guardians of industry and voyages, together with Empress Jingu, who watches over safe childbirth, recovery from illness, and good harvests.

Because the empress is credited with spreading rice cultivation, the shrine holds a rice-planting rite at its summer festival each July, with local schoolchildren serving as the planting maidens. By the prayer hall, look for the great onigawara roof tile set out at ground level, left from a re-roofing in seventeen fifty-six; up close its size is startling. The main sanctuary is built in the irimoya style, and worship in the grounds is possible at any time.

The practical detail that makes Sumiyoshi easy to add to a day: from Kai-Sumiyoshi Station on the JR Minobu Line, the shrine is a five minute walk.

What Kofu eats

Between shrines, the city feeds you well. Hoto is the dish Yamanashi is known for: broad, flat wheat noodles simmered in a miso-based soup crowded with pumpkin, carrot, daikon, mushrooms, and fried tofu. It grew out of the mountain districts, where rice was hard to grow and the noodles stood in for it as a staple, and legend has it that Takeda Shingen himself devised it as a field ration.

The city's other specialty is torimotsu-ni: chicken livers, hearts, and gizzards glazed in a rich, sweet-savory soy reduction. The cooking is done fast over high heat, which concentrates the flavor of the giblets. The dish is said to have been devised by a soba shop in the city in the years just after the war, and it spread from there across town. It works equally well over rice or beside a drink, and locals treat it both ways.

Up the valley to Shosenkyo

When you have had your fill of the town, the valley is waiting. Buses climb from Kofu Station toward the gorge, and the one-way adult fares rise with the road:

• To Shosenkyo-iriguchi and Tenjinmori, at the mouth of the gorge, the fare is seven hundred and ten yen.
• To Greenline Shosenkyo, partway up, the fare is one thousand yen.
• To Shosenkyo-takigami, the area by the falls at the top of the gorge, the fare is one thousand and ninety yen.

Ride to the top and work your way down past the water, or get off at the mouth and walk up; either way the photographs above give you a truthful preview of what the valley holds.

Further up the same road stands Kanazakura Shrine on Mount Mitake, which the guidebook singles out as a shrine for fortune in money matters, recommended to people praying for prosperous trade and rising income.

If you would rather hand the logistics to someone else for this part, you can book a guided day around Kofu and the gorge.

Make it a quiet day

Here is the shape of the day this guide suggests. Come in early on the highway bus from Shinjuku: twenty-five hundred yen for an adult, about two hours and ten minutes. From the north exit of Kofu Station, ride up to Takeda Shrine for two hundred and thirty yen and give the old residence grounds the unhurried hour they deserve.

Walk back down into the town grid for Atago, Hachiman, and Anagiri, with a bowl of hoto or a plate of torimotsu-ni in the middle. If the timetable is kind, add Sumiyoshi by way of the Minobu Line.

In the afternoon, ride up the valley: seven hundred and ten yen brings you to the mouth of the gorge at Tenjinmori. The falls, the rock faces, and Kanazakura are all strung along the same road, and the evening ride back down delivers you to the city in time for dinner.

If Yamanashi is one stop on a longer trip through Japan, the find page collects more quiet days like this one. And if you would rather have the whole day arranged for you, browse guided tours around Kofu before you set out.