Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo: Tokyo Today

Print no. 1 opens the series with Nihonbashi: Clearing after Snow, showing Nihonbashi, Edo Castle and Mount Fuji together. The Nihonbashi district was a major mercantile centre in the Edo period. The first wooden bridge there was completed in 1603. The current bridge, designed by Tsumaki Yorinaka and built of stone on a steel frame, dates from 1911, so you cross a different structure on the same spot Hiroshige drew.

場所の精度: The pin comes from the Nihonbashi district article, not from the bridge itself.

訪問のヒント: The bridge is in the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo.

Hiroshige gave the shrine its own print, Sunrise at Kanda Myōjin Shrine. Kanda Shrine was first built in 730 AD and moved to its modern site on a small hill near Akihabara in 1616. It was an important shrine to both the warrior class and citizens of Japan, and the shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu paid his respects here. Today it is a Shinto shrine in Chiyoda, Tokyo, still on that hill.

訪問のヒント: The shrine is in Chiyoda, close to Akihabara.

Print no. 11, Kiyomizu Hall and Shinobazu Pond at Ueno, shows the Kiyomizu Hall of Kan'ei-ji, the Moon Pine and the pond. Ueno Park now occupies the site of the former Kan'ei-ji temple, and the pond lies within it. Today the pond is divided in three sections, inside Ueno Park.

訪問のヒント: The pond is inside Ueno Park.

Hiroshige's best-known print shows a small part of the wooden Shin-Ōhashi bridge over the Sumida River. Two women and four or five men hurry across under hats, umbrellas or straw capes, while a boatman punts a log raft toward the Fukagawa timber yards. The downpour, which Hiroshige calls "white rain", falls across the whole scene. Published in 1857, it was copied by Vincent van Gogh. The pin is only an approximate position on the river.

場所の精度: The pin marks the Sumida River near today's Shin-Ōhashi crossing; the print's exact viewpoint is not given here.

Print no. 65, Inside Kameido Tenjin Shrine, shows the drum bridge and garden, with flowering wisteria to mark summer. The shrine was built in 1646 and is dedicated to Sugawara no Michizane, a 9th-century scholar. Every year between April and May the Fuji Matsuri festival celebrates the wisteria in bloom at the shrine.

訪問のヒント: Wisteria blooms between April and May; the shrine is in Kameido, Kōtō.

Print no. 79 pairs Shiba Shinmei Shrine with Zōjō-ji, and Hiroshige drew the temple twice in this series. Six of the Tokugawa shōguns are buried in the Taitoku-in Mausoleum in its grounds. Its main gate, dating from 1622, is the oldest wooden building in Tokyo. Today Tokyo Tower stands beside the temple.

訪問のヒント: Zōjō-ji sits in Shiba Park in Minato, beside Tokyo Tower.

The last stop is Kinryūzan Temple in Asakusa, the print where Hiroshige frames the Kaminarimon, the Hōzōmon and the pagoda of Sensō-ji. It is Tokyo's oldest-established temple, and the street leading to it, Nakamise-dōri, is lined with shops. The temple was destroyed in a 10 March 1945 air raid and the main hall was rebuilt in the 1950s.

訪問のヒント: Asakusa, Taitō; Nakamise-dōri leads to the main hall.