Miyajima (宮島) is a small island officially named Itsukushima and less than an hour outside the city of Hiroshima and one of the highlights of our trip to Japan.

It is most famous for its giant torii gate currently under renovation, which at high tide seems to float on the water.

The sight is ranked as one of Japan’s three best views and for the Itsukushima shrine, also built over the water

There are also wild deer on the island that have become accustomed to people. In the day the deer wander around the same sites as the tourists, and in the evening they sleep along the walking paths.

Daisho-in (大聖院, Daishōin) is one of the most important temples of Shingon Buddhism in Japan

It is located at the base of Mount Misen, on which the sect’s founder, Kobo Daishi, first began the practice of Buddhism on the island of Miyajima.

Daisho-in features a variety of buildings, statues and other religious objects for visitors to admire.

These include the Kannon-do Hall, the Maniden Hall, a sand mandala made by visiting monks from Tibet, a tea room and a cave filled with 88 icons representing the temples of the Shikoku Pilgrimage.

An interesting Buddhist ritual can be performed when walking up the temple’s steps.

Along the stairs is a row of spinning metal wheels that are inscribed with sutra (Buddhist scriptures).

Turning the inscriptions as one walks up is believed to have the same effect as reading them.

So, without any knowledge of Japanese, you can benefit from the blessings that the reading of sutra is believed to entail.

Daishō-in is is the 14th temple in the Chūgoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage and famous for the maple trees and their autumn colors.

It is also called “Suishō-ji”.

As the headquarters of the Omuro branch of Shingon Buddhism, it is the most important temple of Miyajima.

The temple was the administrator of the Itsukushima shrine before Meiji Restoration forbade (Shinbutsu bunri) syncretism (Shinbutsu-shūgō) between Shinto and Buddhism in 1868

Itsukushima (厳島) is an island in the western part of theInland Sea of Japan, located in the northwest of Hiroshima Bay. 

It is popularly known as Miyajima (宮島), which in Japanese means “Shrine Island”.

The island is one of Hayashi Gaho’s Three Views of Japan specified in 1643.

Itsukushima is part of the city of Hatsukaichi  in Hiroshima Prefecture.

The island was part of the former town of Miyajima before the 2005 merger with Hatsukaichi.

So after a day visit to the Hiroshima Peace memorial, we returned to the railway station and caught the train down to the coast,

for a ferry to the Island.

Most tourists visit for the day and then head back to the mainland, but there is real value in staying overnight, or in our case for a few nights.

Once the tourists have gone home, the island turns quiet and restful. The shrines you visited in the morning are open reasonably late and can be re-visited with fewer people, and in the case of the Itsukushima Shrine with its famous red tori gates, possibly more water depending on the tide.

Note that in Japan, the term “shrine” implies a Shinto religious structure and “temple” implies a Buddhist one.

Miyajima is famous for the Itsukishima Shrine (厳島神社, Itsukushima-jinja) which is a shinto shrine, sitting in a shallow coastal harbour, known for its “floating” torii gate.

The historic shrine complex is listed as a UNESCO World heritage site, as well as one of the National treasures by the Japanese government.

It is also the site visited by many families for a couple’s wedding photos in traditional outfits.

For our visit, the tori gates were being repaired and under cover, but on shrine island there are plenty of beautiful sites to see and visit. More than enough places to make up for missing the gate.

Moving west across Japan from Tokyo, we left Takayama and reached Osaka for a brief overnight stop. Later we were told the people of that city have a reputation for taking everything at a much faster pace and certainly it felt like a city that enjoyed a party.

Even so, it felt uniquely Japanese which is to say both polite and safe. Travelling through the country we saw countless people on bicycles, both rural and city, and not a single bicycle lock. People trusted each other enough not to steal their bikes.

On public transport, the public information announcements exhorted people to switch off their phones, to switch down their music etc so as not to inconvenience their fellow travellers with noise. Elsewhere people worry about much more egregious behaviour. It is a polite and safe country for tourists.

The only times we came close to getting lost were finding our way out of some of the larger stations. After standing puzzled for a few minutes, inevitably someone local would stop and in often very broken English, would do their best to help us find our way.

We visited Hiroshima passing through on our way to Miyajima, Shrine Island just south of the city. Having arrived at the station, we caught a tram from just outside to the Peace Memorial and Museum.

As you would expect it was a somewhat harrowing experience, almost made more so by the presence of so many very young children visiting with school groups.

It felt an essential part of the trip, and probably necessary to understand some of the internal conflict within Japan, the pull towards and push away from the military but it was also a huge relief to leave.

On the way back to the station we were stopped by a group of young teen students who had been tasked with chatting with tourists to try and understand the impact of the Peace Memorial.

Their teacher hovered protectively as they practiced their English and struggled with the speed of our responses.

They were a real delight after the intensity of the museum.

Takayama is a city in Japan’s mountainous Gifu Prefecture,

with narrow streets of its Sanmachi Suji historic district lined with wooden merchants’ houses dating to the Edo Period.

Takayama retains a traditional touch like few other Japanese cities, especially in its beautifully preserved old town.

It has become one of the prime candidates among travelers wishing to add a rural element into their itineraries.

Takayama gained importance as a source of high quality timber and highly skilled carpenters during the feudal ages.

The city was consequently put under direct control of the shogun and enjoyed quite a bit of prosperity considering its remote mountain location.

The city is now famed for its biannual Takayama Festival, going back to at least the mid-1600s, celebrating spring and fall with parades featuring ornate, gilded floats and puppet shows.

None of which we saw, visiting in the first week of September.

We did have our best meal of the entire trip though,

staying at a very traditional inn towards the outskirts of the city, in two rooms complete with tatami matting, comfortable futons on the floor and incredibly uncomfortably hard pillows.

There were shared toilets and sinks on our floor, and communal baths downstairs with an onsen for men and one for women.

My daughters assure me that the most traumatic event of the entire holiday was showering down in the public baths with a total stranger though I’m not sure whether getting naked in front of the stranger was more or less difficult than getting naked infant of their mum or sister.

Ho hum. Another example of where dad is held to an entirely lower standard.

Since we’re a family entranced by Ghibli, it isn’t too surprising that we found ourselves at the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo walking through an exhibition on the work of Takahata Isao, one of Ghibli’s founders.

There was an interesting pre-Ghibli history that walked though his TV work.

But it was the films we’ve loved that were most interesting such as PomPoko or Grave of the Fireflies

The films are all a little bittersweet, except maybe the Yamadas.

Culminating with his final film, bittersweet but beautiful animation.

And afterwards a rather strange walk around the main galleries and the realisation that whilst Van Gogh and his friends were being inspired by Japanese exotica arriving in Europe, artists in Japan were discovering watercolours.

Ghibli Tour completed on our first day, we had a half day tour of Tokyo followed by a day free.

I found a nifty metro map that summarised the city interesting for tourists. It’s undoubtedly over-simplistic but useful nevertheless.

Based in Ueno, our organised tour (just a half day) started with Asakusa and ended in Shibuya. It also allowed us to use our japanese guide’s experience to book seats for all of our planned rail journeys. Although it’s entirely possible to travel without reserving seats, it’s more comfortable to have everything arranged.

It was also really great to have someone to introduce us to the Tokyo metro system (which is as easy and efficient as you would expect, with announcements in English following every Japanese announcement.

The Temples of Asakusa lie within one of Tokyo’s few districts that still preserves an atmosphere Tokyo’s past.

Entrance to the temples is best through the impressive entrance gates, especially the 1000 year old Kaminarimon (Kaminari Gate) that leads straight on to Sensōji – Tokyo’s largest and oldest Buddhist temple built in the 7th century.

Visiting on the weekend meant everything was hugely busy but still great fun and an introduction to the difference between temples and shrines.

Contemplating the physical sprawl of Tokyo is daunting and we had nowhere near enough time to even pretend to discover it seriously.

It has no discernible center, and clusters of skyscrapers miles apart defy the idea of a downtown core. Tokyo actually feels like a city composed of 23 separate cities, or wards, that all have distinct names and local municipal systems.

So we took our guides advice, and travelled from Asakusa to the Meiji Jingu Shrine, by way of shopping districts.

For the girls, our guide suggested visiting Harujuku, renowned for colorful street art and youth fashion, with quirky vintage clothing stores and cosplay shops along Takeshita Street, and traditional, upmarket boutiques on leafy Omotesando Avenue.

It does’t quite compare to the oddities of Camden Market in London, more Oxford Circus maybe.

But the walk through the park to the shrine was a lovely way to break up the heat and humidity.

Time is limited, so we need to focus on visiting maybe just two diverse neighbourhoods on our free day, choosing from peaceful Nakameguro to eclectic, if we are to get a taste for the reality of Tokyo. For city views, the Metropolitan Government Building Observatory is free, and so tall your ears will pop in the lift to the top. There are views out to Mount Fuji, it has a cool gift shop and is just as beautiful by day as at night.

We missed out on Kappabashi, Tokyo’s kitchen capital, easily recognisable thanks to a giant chef statue peering from atop a low rise office building and surprisingly close to our apartment in Ueno, Tokyo

And we missed out on so many districts including Ginza, the major shopping district, Nakano for anime and cos-play shops, Tsukji Market, Aoyma Flower Market and niche boutique shops. We definitely need a re-vsiit.

After the shrine, we were left close to Shibuya with its incredibly busy five way pedestrian crossing, grabbed some lunch had a family squabble and headed back to our flat

Our first day in Tokyo was based around an organised tour on a Ghibli theme.

In large part this was because it is incredibly difficult to get hold of tickets for the museum and an organised tour made things much easier to coordinate.

Our first jet-lagged day worked well for being so structured, with a trip to the Edo Tokyo museum leading nicely to the Ghibli Museum itself in the Tokyo suburbs.

There is a no photograph policy within the museum, so pictures are typically limited to the outside of the museum and the roof garden.

It’s difficult to adequately describe this tiny museum. It has some rooms devoted to very lovely examples of the original artwork or cells that make up various Ghibli films, as well as to film making and animation itself.

There are interesting and new zoetropes that adults and children were fascinated by and a decent cafe at the top of the museum.

Best of all perhaps, there were various rooms set up as examples of the Ghibli team’s work in progress with pieces they took inspiration from, various initial sketches worked through to the final cells etc.

If you’re interested in Ghibli, the museum small but perfect, a “must-see”.

We’re back from Japan so I thought I’d revisit the original plan and how it all worked out.

Staring with Tokyo, with just four nights and a stroppy teenager channelling her inner toddler, we just didn’t have enough time.

We had four nights in Tokyo, staying in a four bed family apartment near the Ueno metro station. We arrived mid-afternoon after a punishing trip so were just too tired to try anything other than finding our apartment and food for supper/breakfast.

We then woke up for a full day tour based around Studio Ghibli which includes a trip to the Ghibli Museum in the suburbs which might sound difficult given jet lag but actually turned out to be an ideal way of keeping us going, helping to acclimatise us all to Tokyo in a very benign manner.

The Ghibli Tour is based on a bus tour and includes the Ghibli Museum, a buffet lunch at Hotel Gajoen Tokyo (a possible inspiration for the Aburaya bath house in Spirited Away, and the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum.

Bizarrely for a tour that starts at 10am (or thereabouts) it starts with “lunch” at 11am at the hotel and the hotel’s link to Spirited Away felt like a stretch.

Does the entrance to the main building really look like the bath house? Does the open plan set of floors really reming me of the floors inside the Spirited Away bath house? Not convinced.

Next the tour took us to the Edo-Tokyo Museum.

Here historical buildings from across Japan have been reconstructed in the middle of a wooded park, to create the atmosphere of feudal era Japan – it’s supposed to feel like walking through a Ghibli set. And the links to Ghibli are much more obvious.

You can believe that the people working at the nearby studio came here for a packed lunch in the museum park.

On a damp day, an empty street of historic buildings could very plausibly be the inspiration for the empty daytime row of shops leading to the bath house.

As well as the main street there are various traditional buildings and a tram very reminiscent of the “train” over water in Spirted Away.

Although nothing to do with the film, the farmhouse rebuilt at the museum was very beautiful

The House of Korekiyo Takahashi, a politician of the Meiji period and the site of apolitical coup, has perhaps more links to Ghibli, with its windows very reminiscent of those of Yubaba’s through which Haku was attacked.

But as always, it is the details of life, the feel of the place that was most striking – very serene.

Planning a trip to Japan, and I’ve started with some standard tours from a specialist firm called Inside Japan.

What I want is an extended introduction, preferably with some Ghibli overtones for my kids to enjoy. The basic specialist tour looks something like this:

Tour 1: Basic Japan – 15 Days

The list price for the basic trip seems to be around £1500 per person, not including air fares. A quick look at sky scanner shows a standard fare from London to Tokyo to be around £1100 each so a total starting cost for a family of four adults of around £11,000.

The basics focus most trips is Tokyo, Hakkone (Mt Fuji) Kyoto and Miyajima (Hiroshima) with a trip to countryside (Takayama). It also makes the most of the excellent rail system. With some old work colleagues living in Tokyo, we may need an extra day to hang out and visit with people. At the same time, I’m probably happy to skip the days in Hakone.

But there are some interesting ways to mix things up which would all add to the cost. The basic trip includes a few days in the Japanese alps in Takayama, but we could also head south to the sub-tropical islands. We could include a bit of the countryside and more traditional Japanese towns and villages.

Looking through a Studio Ghibli article, there are a couple of places that jump out.

• Ghibli Museum (near Tokyo)
• Tomonoura, Seto Inland Sea – the setting for Ponyo
• Yakushima Island – a setting associated with Princess Mononoke
• Dogo Onsen, Matsuyama – the tea house most closely linked to Spirited Away

The Ghibli Museum is easy enough to include on any trip. Dogo Onsen, Matsuyama is currently being refurbished so would not be worth a visit and a Ghibli themed tour of Tokyo seems to claim an alternative bathhouse with Spirited Away. Hmm.

It looks like it could be a long long journey by ferry, train and shinkansen from Kyoto to the island of Yakushima, but once there it seems to be the kind of place you would stay for a long weekend’s retreat. To get to the island mostly involves travel via Kagoshima so maybe we could follow a route down through the islands from Nagasaki.

As well as being the famous second site for the US nuclear bombs, Nagasaki has an interesting role as the only Japanese port open to the West for most of Japan’s long history. It’s probably worth a visit irrespective of a jaunt south to the islands. A trip to Nagasaki would add maybe two more nights to the trip.

Maybe we could travel south slowly by train and ferry but fly back to Osaka? That would add another two to three days in Yakashima.

Japan Air Commuter, a member of the JAL Group, operates one round trip per day between Osaka‘s Itami Airport and Yakushima. Flight duration is about 100 minutes. The regular one way fare is around 39,000 yen with discount fares available for around 27,000 yen (around £275)

Looking at a Japanese natural history programme, suggests a few tours other than the Tokyo Ghibli trip. In particular there are a few sites close to Kyoto i.e..

• Harie(針江), in Shiga prefecture, is known as the village of living water, near Kyoto (probably a day trip)
• Japan’s bowing deer of Nara, Todaiji Temple probably a day trip from Kyoto

We could also include a trip to the 500 metre path through the Sagano Bamboo Forest on the western outskirts of Kyoto. All of this would need at least one extra night in Kyoto.

The places above all look as if they could be included on the standard trips via Kyoto day trips. I’d also like to visit a spa and see some macaques maybe near Nagano (Yudanaka and Shibu Onsen villages are places to stay in a traditional wooden Japanese inn and experience why the monkeys love relaxing in the onset)

but we may just have to skip Japan’s black bears which are most easy to find in Hokkaido. The various cat islands also look difficult to incorporate into the standard trip – I wonder if there are any cat shrines accessible?

Or if there’s a tour that focuses on the tanuki (Japanese Racoon dogs) taking up residence in the cities?

And the firefly displays are a May-July phenomena only so we’ll miss them if we travel in September. Similarly the bioluminescent firefly squid of Toyama Bay come together in a stunning electric-blue display but in May-June, so a September trip will miss them.