The Tōkaidō: Hiroshige's Road from Edo to Kyoto

In 1832 Hiroshige travelled the Tōkaidō from Edo to Kyoto with a delegation carrying horses for the imperial court, and the print series he made afterwards opens here. Besides the 53 stations it has a departure print of Nihonbashi, the "bridge of Japan". Today's Nihonbashi is a stone two-arch bridge opened in 1911, and a bronze road-origin marker is set into the middle of the roadway: this is the spot the old road network started from.

Visitor guidance: Walk onto the bridge to find the bronze marker in the middle of the roadway.

Hakone is the 10th station and, at 725 m, the highest of the 53. The checkpoint stood between Mount Byōbu and Lake Ashi, with the Tōkaidō running through the middle. The Meiji government abolished all such barriers in 1869, and the site became a national historic site in 1922. The checkpoint has since been reconstructed, and the restored site opened fully to the public in 2007.

Visitor guidance: The reconstructed checkpoint is open to visitors.

Arai, the 31st station, lay on the western shore of Lake Hamana, and travellers crossed the water by boat from Maisaka. Hiroshige's print shows a daimyō procession on that crossing: the lord in a large boat bearing his crest, his retainers in a smaller one with the baggage. Arai's checkpoint was the only one on the Tōkaidō that existed both on land and on the water. The main building dates from the rebuild of 1855 and is now a museum of the post stations; it is a Special Historic Site.

Visitor guidance: The surviving checkpoint building is open as a museum.

Okazaki, the 38th station, grew around a castle town. Hiroshige drew Yahagi Bridge, one of the few bridges the shogunate allowed on the Tōkaidō, with Okazaki Castle in the distance on the far shore. In the Edo period it was the longest bridge in Japan. Few remains of the post town survive today, and the bridge has been replaced many times; the 16th, 300 m long, was finished in 2011 just south of the old road.

Visitor guidance: You can cross the present Yahagi Bridge on foot.

Miya, the 41st station, had more inns than any other post station on the Tōkaidō. Hiroshige's print shows two gangs of men hauling a portable shrine cart, which stays out of the frame, past a huge torii. The shrine is the famous Atsuta Shrine. The old post town is now part of downtown Nagoya.

Location precision: The pin marks Atsuta Shrine, which the print points to; the exact torii and street are not identified.

Visitor guidance: Atsuta Shrine is in southern Nagoya.

In Hiroshige's print of Seki, the 47th station, a daimyō procession is getting ready to leave a honjin before dawn: retainers tie on hats and sandals, samurai wait by the entrance, and the sky is still dark. An 1843 guidebook counted 632 houses here, including two honjin and 42 inns for travellers. Many historic buildings were preserved, and Seki is a designated district for groups of traditional buildings. Over about 1.8 km more than 200 traditional townhouses survive, and the great torii at the east junction came from Ise's Uji Bridge.

Location precision: The print shows an unnamed honjin; the pin marks the post town in Kameyama.

Visitor guidance: Walk the old street and look for the great torii at the east junction.

The series ends with the 55th print, Kyoto, the imperial capital. Sanjō Ōhashi was the end of both the Tōkaidō and the Nakasendō. In 1589 Hideyoshi had the bridge rebuilt on stone pillars, and a marker on the south-west side points out a cut on one of its giboshi posts, which some link to a sword stroke in the Ikedaya incident. The present bridge dates from 1950.

Visitor guidance: The bridge is open to walkers; the marker about the cut is on the south-west side.