Japan's Three Views: Matsushima, Amanohashidate, Miyajima

Some landscapes are visited; others are returned to. The Three Views of Japan have been the latter kind for nearly four hundred years.

What are the Three Views of Japan?

The grouping known as Nihon Sankei was first proposed by the Confucian scholar Hayashi Gaho in 1643, who identified three coastal landscapes that in his view represented the most striking scenery in all of Japan. The list has endured for centuries as a touchstone of Japanese aesthetic tradition, and today each of the three remains a popular travel destination that visitors can reach by regular train and ferry service.

What links the three is water: all are seascapes that combine pine-covered islands or sandbars with a particular quality of light reflecting off the sea. Each one is best appreciated from a specific vantage point generations of travelers have agreed upon.

1. Matsushima (Miyagi) — the pine islands

Matsushima Bay is scattered with roughly 260 small pine-covered islets, their shapes sculpted over centuries by wind and tide. The haiku poet Matsuo Basho visited in 1689 and reportedly found it so beautiful he was unable to compose a verse. The bay is also credited with absorbing much of the force of the 2011 Tohoku tsunami, protecting the town from the worst of the damage that struck the broader coast.

• ●Scene — hundreds of pine-topped islands scattered across a shallow bay
• ●Best viewpoint — the Shiogama–Matsushima sightseeing boat, or the Saigyo Modoshi no Matsu Park hillside above town
• ●Access — about 40 minutes from Sendai on the JR Senseki Line to Matsushima-Kaigan Station

2. Amanohashidate (Kyoto) — the bridge to heaven

Amanohashidate is a natural sandbar roughly 3.6 kilometers long and lined with about 8,000 pine trees, stretching across the mouth of Miyazu Bay on the northern coast of Kyoto^PR Prefecture. Its name translates as 'bridge in the sky,' a reference to the traditional viewing custom of looking at it bent over backward between one's legs, which inverts the view and makes the sandbar appear to float in the air.

• ●Scene — a long, narrow, pine-lined sandbar across a turquoise bay
• ●Best viewpoint — Kasamatsu Park on the north side (reached by chairlift or cable car) or Amanohashidate View Land on the south
• ●Access — roughly 2 hours from Kyoto^PR Station via limited express Hashidate to Amanohashidate Station

3. Miyajima (Hiroshima) — the floating torii

Itsukushima — commonly called Miyajima, 'shrine island' — rises from the Seto Inland Sea just offshore from Hiroshima^PR. The vermilion torii gate of Itsukushima Shrine stands in the tidal flats and appears to float at high tide, making it one of the most photographed images in Japan. The shrine complex, built on stilts over the water, is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

• ●Scene — a vermilion torii standing in the sea at high tide, with a cedar-forested mountain rising behind
• ●Best viewpoint — from the shrine's wooden walkways at high tide; from the top of Mount Misen at any time
• ●Access — about 25 minutes by JR Sanyo Line from Hiroshima^PR to Miyajimaguchi, then a 10-minute ferry

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