Bashō's Narrow Road to the Deep North

Bashō lived in a hut by the Sumida River in Fukagawa, named after the banana plant (bashō) a pupil had planted there. Before the journey he gave it up and stayed at a disciple's villa nearby. At dawn on 16 May 1689 he and Sora took a boat up the river to Senju, where friends saw them off and he wrote the first poem of the journey: "Spring is passing — / birds cry, and in the eyes / of the fish, tears." The open book begins: "The months and days are travellers of a hundred generations."

Location precision: The hut's exact site is lost; the pin marks the Bashō Inari Shrine, built where it is believed to have stood.

Visitor guidance: The small shrine is in Tokiwa, Kōtō; the Bashō Museum and a riverside statue of the poet are a few minutes' walk away.

Taking the Nikkō road north, the pair reached Nikkō on the first day of the fourth month, where the shogun's ancestor Tokugawa Ieyasu is enshrined in the lavishly carved Tōshō-gū. Bashō was careful with his words about the ruling house, but he could play on the place name, which means "sunlight": "How awe-inspiring — / on the green leaves, the young leaves, / the light of the sun." From here they went on to Kurobane, where they were so warmly received that they stayed fourteen days, the longest halt of the whole journey.

Location precision: Bashō visited the shrine area; the pin marks Nikkō Tōshō-gū.

Visitor guidance: The shrines and temples of Nikkō are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, two hours by train from Tokyo.

The old barrier at Shirakawa marked the entrance to the deep north, and for centuries poets had written about crossing it — of autumn wind, of spring mist, of the capital left behind. By Bashō's time the barrier itself was long gone. Crossing here, he wrote, he finally felt that his journey had truly begun. The white deutzia flowers in bloom made Sora think of the ancients putting on their best clothes to pass the gate. Bashō, overwhelmed by the poetic past, left the place to his companion's haiku.

Visitor guidance: The barrier site, a national historic site south of Shirakawa city, has a small shrine among old trees.

Matsushima, a bay scattered with over two hundred pine-covered islands, was already counted one of Japan's three great views. Bashō had dreamed of seeing it from the start, and when he did, it left him speechless: in the finished book he includes no haiku of his own here, only Sora's. The famous verse "Matsushima, ah! Matsushima, ah!" often credited to Bashō is not his. The two lodged by the bay and visited the Zuigan-ji temple, rebuilt by the warlord Date Masamune.

Location precision: The view takes in the whole bay; the pin marks the Zuigan-ji temple on its shore.

Visitor guidance: Sightseeing boats tour the islands from Matsushima-Kaigan station, 40 minutes from Sendai.

Hiraizumi had been the glittering capital of the Northern Fujiwara clan until 1189, when the hero Minamoto no Yoshitsune died here in his last stand and the clan fell. Five centuries later Bashō climbed to the site of Yoshitsune's mansion at Takadachi, looked over the river plain and wept, and wrote the most famous poem of the journey: "Summer grasses — / all that remains / of warriors' dreams." At the Golden Hall nearby he wrote of the summer rains that seemed to have spared it.

Visitor guidance: The Takadachi Gikeidō chapel stands on the hill; Hiraizumi's temples, including Chūson-ji's Golden Hall, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Staying with a rich safflower merchant in Obanazawa, Bashō was urged to make a detour he had not planned, to Risshaku-ji, the "mountain temple" founded in 860 among crags above a valley. He climbed through the temple halls perched on the rocks and wrote what many consider his finest haiku: "Such stillness — / sinking into the rocks, / the cicadas' cry." The cicadas of Yamadera are now on Japan's official list of 100 soundscapes.

Visitor guidance: The climb up the temple's stone steps takes about an hour; Yamadera station is on the line between Yamagata and Sendai.

After riding the rapids of the Mogami River — "Gathering the rains / of summer, how swift it flows, / the Mogami" — Bashō reached the Three Mountains of Dewa, sacred to the mountain ascetics. He stayed at Haguro, then climbed Gassan, the highest, and Yudono, whose rituals pilgrims were forbidden to describe. At Haguro he wrote: "How cool — / the faint crescent moon / over Mount Haguro." The path to the summit shrine climbs through cedars past an ancient five-storey pagoda.

Visitor guidance: The stone stairway to the Haguro summit shrine has about 2,400 steps through cedar forest; buses also run to the top.

The northernmost point of the journey was Kisakata, a lagoon full of small pine islands that was famous as the rival of Matsushima. Bashō saw it in rain and compared the two: "Matsushima seems to laugh, Kisakata to grieve." The landscape he saw no longer exists. In 1804 an earthquake raised the seabed, and the old islands now stand as wooded hillocks among rice fields — a strange sight best seen when the paddies are flooded in spring. From here the travellers turned south along the Sea of Japan.

Location precision: The old lagoon covered a wide area; the pin marks Kanman-ji temple, which Bashō visited.

Visitor guidance: Kanman-ji temple in Nikaho has a statue of Bashō; the former islands rise from the fields around it.

Down the coast — past Sado lying across a rough sea under the Milky Way — and through Kanazawa, where Sora, unwell, went on ahead, Bashō reached Ōgaki in the autumn. Disciples gathered to welcome him as if he had come back from the dead. But he did not stop: he set off again by boat to see the rebuilding of the Ise Shrine, closing the book with a punning farewell: "Like a clam torn from its shell, / I go on to Futami — / autumn passing." He died five years later, still travelling.

Location precision: Bashō's lodging isn't marked; the pin marks the Oku no Hosomichi memorial museum by the old river port.

Visitor guidance: The Oku no Hosomichi Musubi-no-chi Memorial Museum in Ōgaki tells the story of the journey.