Mount Hiei

Ooaj Travel Guide, tourism, hotel reservation, residence, plane, cheap pension for you holidays in mount hiei

Free Travel guide Ooaj.com A free travel guide for holidays. Hotels in mount hiei, Bed and Breakfast!

Mount Hiei (??? Hiei-zan), to the northeast of Kyoto, Japan, is an extensive temple complex. The town of Sakamoto (??) lies at the base of the mountain.

	mount hiei Travel Guide : 1 Understand 2 Get in 2.1 By train 2.2 By bus 3 Get around 4 See 5 Eat & Drink 6 Sleep 7 External links

Understand

The temple of Enryakuji, the first Japanese outpost of the esoteric Tendai sect of Buddhism, was founded atop Mt. Hiei by Saicho in 788. The temple complex was razed by Oda Nobunaga in 1571 to quell the rising power of the Tendai's warrior monks, but it was rebuilt and remains the Tendai headquarters to this day.

Get in

There are several ways to reach Sakamoto and Mount Hiei.

By train

From Kyoto, take the Keihan Main Line to Demachiyanagi and transfer to an Eizan train to Yase-Hieizan-guchi (??????). From here the Eizan Cable Car makes the trip to the top of Mount Hiei for ¥530/1040 one-way/return, every 30 minutes daily from 8:30 to 17:30 (or longer, schedules vary a bit depending on the season).

From the Lake Biwa side, you can take the JR Kosei line or Keihan Ishiyama-Sakamoto line to Sakamoto, although the Keihan station (the last station on the line) is more centrally located. The Hiyoshi Taisha shrine and the cable car to Mt. Hiei are about 15 min away on foot, both fairly well signposted.

By bus

There are occasional direct buses from Kyoto station directly to the top, taking about 1.5 hours and all departing in the morning. Schedules are severely curtailed in the winter.

Get around

Both Sakamoto and Mt. Hiei are best covered on foot. For going between the two, you can use the Sakamoto Cable Car (http://www.sakamoto-cable.jp), which costs ¥840/1570 one-way/round-trip and runs daily from 8 AM to 5 PM once every 30 minutes. At over 2 km, this is the longest cable car in Japan and takes about 11 minutes for the journey. This cable car line was built in 1927 and refurbished in 1993. The European style cars have large windows with wonderful views of Lake Biwa.

A real pilgrim would of course scoff at mechanical contraptions and climb the mountain, which is fairly easy as this isn't really more than an oversized hill. The traditional route is a convenient path of mossy steps known as Honzaka (??), starting from Sakamoto, but it's still 500 meters (vertical) to the top. There are also many other routes, with numerous small temples and waterfalls along the way, but watch out as signposting (even in Japanese) is lacking.

See

The temples on Mt. Hiei are collectively known as Enryakuji (???), literally "Long Calendar Temple". The large complex is generally divided into three sections known as the Eastern Pagoda (?? T?do), the Western Pagoda (?? Saito) and Yokawa; neither of the pagodas actually exist any more, but the names live on. Most of the better-known temples are concentrated in the Eastern Pagoda area.

• Konpon Chud? (????), the central hall of the temple, contains the Inextinguishable Dharma Light (?????), a fire that has been burning for 1200 years. There is always a monk assigned to tend the fire and chant sutras here.

• Bruno Petzold Monument, 1 (http://www.gunlake.bc.ca/petzold). There is a station near the top of the Sakamoto Cable run called Motateyama. Walking a few hundred meters from this stop will bring you to a monument which has been erected to the memory of Bruno Petzold, a German Tendai Bishop and scholar who lived in Japan until his death in 1949.

There are some temples and shrines of lesser interest in Sakamoto as well.

• Hiyoshi Taisha (????; 2 (http://www6.ocn.ne.jp/~hiyoshi3/)) is a fairly standard-issue large Japanese Shinto shrine, best known for its autumn foliage (October through November) and three ancient stone bridges.

Eat & Drink

• Hiyoshi Sans? (????) within the Hiyoshi Taisha shrine is a traditional teahouse in an extremely scenic little river gorge, particularly popular in fall. Food prices are quite steep (¥800 for soba!), but you can also bring your food for a ¥300 charge per head.
• There is a small restaurant by the Sakamoto Cable Car Mt. Hiei station, serving all the usual suspects.

Sleep

There is a wide range of accommodation in Sakamoto, but many visitors choose to day-trip from Kyoto instead.

• Saiky?ji Youth Hostel (?????, tel. 077-578-0013) in Sakamoto is a good but somewhat inconveniently located hostel on the northern outskirts of town, although you can take a bus from either station (5-7 minutes, get off at Saiky?ji). While affiliated with and run by a temple, the building itself is modern. HI members pay ¥3255 a night plus ¥630/1050 for breakfast/dinner.

External links

• Hieizan Enryakuji (http://www.hieizan.or.jp/enryakuji/econt/index.html)