[2023-01-30] Amanohashidate - Bridge to Heaven Since the Kansai Wide Excursion Pass is a three day ticket I used the third day to travel to one of the Three Views of Japan: Amanohashidate, literally translating to the Bridge to Heaven - I know I know, it's not Japanese castle ruins, but I'm running out of castles on the list that are accessible with this pass! Trying to make a one day trip to north Kyoto required the use of limited express train with paid seating, so I already got my value out of the ticket with trip alone! (For reference: the Kansai Wide Excursion Pass costs 10000 yen, Kobe <> Shingu was about 16500 yen across 2 days, Kobe <> Amanohashidate ended up being 11400 yen for a single day) Amanohashidate is a natural strip of land spanning across 3 kilometers between the ends of the Miyazu Bay. It got its name back in the day as people felt that this sandbar looked like a bridge that fell from the heavens. Another tale is derived from viewing the landscape upside-down, making it seem like a snake-like dragon is ascending towards the lands above... Though this sounds a little farfetched if you ask me. The viewing can be done from either one of the nearby mountain ranges; the Amanohashidate Viewland on the south, or the Kasamatsu Park. While I kind of wanted to check the view from both ends, turns out that a 3km walk across the sandbar is still quite a long walk regardless. I expected more people to be wandering along this trail but honestly there's not much to see other than the 7000 pine trees that have been planted here. Oh, and I guess I should mention the elephant in the room: while a lot of the snow has melted into small patches of frosty ice, the snow made a surprising comeback on this day. #天橋立 #籠神社 #傘松公園 #amanohashidate #konojinja #kasamatsupark #japanphoto #pixel6pro https://www.instagram.com/p/CpZ_BmdrcDC/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=









