From the sea at Yuigahama to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, a broad avenue runs north for about two kilometers, almost perfectly straight. This is Wakamiya Oji.
The man who had it built was Minamoto no Yoritomo. An approach running straight from the sea to the shrine of the gods. The warrior capital grew up around this single axis. Along the avenue, starting from the sea, stand the first torii gate, the second, and the third, so that anyone arriving from the water passes through three gates before being led to the shrine.
Beyond the second torii, the middle of the road rises one step higher than the rest. This is the Dankazura. Tradition says Yoritomo had it built to pray for a safe childbirth for his wife, Masako, and that his own vassals carried the stones themselves. This was low ground near the sea, and whenever it rained the road turned to mud, so the raised path let people walk above it.
The Dankazura grows gradually narrower the closer it gets to the shrine. Because of this, it is said that, coming from the sea, the shrine feels farther away than it really is.
For more than eight hundred years, countless people have walked this road. Vassals on horseback, laborers hauling cargo landed at the harbor, pilgrims from Edo, and, once the railway arrived in the Meiji era, people from Tokyo coming for a day of sea bathing.
In spring, cherry trees bloom along both sides of the Dankazura, and the path becomes a tunnel of pale pink. Near the first torii, the sea breeze carries the smell of salt, and as the road nears the shrine, it gives way to the scent of trees on the hills.
The road that began at the sea passes through the third torii and continues on to the shrine, set halfway up the hillside.
