When I was in Hiroshima, I made a short trip to the town of Iwakuni. There is a 5-arches wooden bridge crossing the Nishiki river. It’s the Kintai-kyô 錦帯橋 bridge.
It was built in 1673 by Kodama Kurôemon under an order from the local lord, Kikkawa Hiroyoshi. It was destroyed by a typhoon in 1950 and rebuilt in 1953. The bridge is 210 metres in length. It cost 300 Yen to cross it both ways.
During my trip in Hiroshima, I visited the Hiroshima castle.
As most Japanese castles, it’s not the original building but a reconstitution as it was destroyed by the A-bomb in 1945.
The inside of what is also called the Carp Castle (rijô 鯉城) has been amenaged as a museum about the history of Hiroshima. There, we learn that the castle was built in 1589 by Môri Terumoto 毛利輝元 who was one of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s council of Five Elders. In 1600, being on the defeated side at the Sekigahara battle, Môri was forced to leave the castle and to retreat to Hagi (Yamaguchi prefecture). Fukushima Masanori 福島正則 became then the new lord of the castle until 1619. He was then replaced by Asano Nagaakira 浅野長晟.
The museum also explains the different types of Japanese castles and the social organization during the Edo period. It’s probably not the most interesting attraction in Hiroshima, but it’s worth seeing.
As I said before, I went to Hiroshima during the “Golden Week”. Apart from the Itsukushima-jinja sanctuary, I also went to the famous Atomic Bomb Dome, also called Genbaku dômu 原爆ドーム. This is another site registered to the Unesco World Culture Heritage.
The building used to be Prefectural Commercial Exhibition Hall and was designed by a Czech architect called Jan Letzel. The atomic bomb is said to have exploded about 160 metres from the building. (The bomb actually exploded about 600 metres from the ground, so the Genbaku domu is actually located 160 metres from the pointed straight under where the bomb exploded.)
Not far from there i, in a park, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum where the history of the city, that of the development of atomic bombs and the ravages the bomb thrown on the 6th of august 1945 by US Army caused on the city and people of Hiroshima are presented. A visit to this museum won’t leave you intact, I assure you.