Japan
Kamakura
A bronze Buddha meditating outdoors for five centuries, since the sea took his hall.
The bronze Buddha has been meditating outdoors for more than five hundred years. Rain streaks his cheeks. Pigeons perch on his curls. He does not seem to mind. Behind him, forested hills hide dozens more temples connected by hiking trails that smell of cedar and incense, and below him the Enoden tram rattles along the beach.
Kamakura was the seat of Japan's first samurai government, the Kamakura shogunate, from 1185 to 1333, and Zen Buddhism arrived from China in its wake — the meditation, green tea and temple carving of modern Japan took root here. The Great Buddha at Kōtoku-in, a thirteenth-century bronze Amida eleven metres tall without his pedestal, once sat inside a vast wooden hall; the hall was destroyed by disaster in the 1400s — the temple records a tsunami in 1498 — and he has sat in the open ever since. Tsurugaoka Hachimangū, the shrine the first shogun moved here from the beach, is the heart of the town, and Komachi-dōri runs beside its approach lined with tea rooms and shirasu kitchens. Hōkoku-ji serves matcha in its bamboo grove, the hill trails link temple to temple with views of Sagami Bay, and an hour from Tokyo the lanes get very crowded at weekends.
Solo
The hill trails connect temple to temple through quiet forest — a solo day of walking and reflection — and Komachi-dōri's tea rooms keep the pace gentle.
Couple
Matcha for two in Hōkoku-ji's bamboo grove and the beach at Yuigahama bookend a day that slides from sacred stillness to salt air.
Family
The Great Buddha, the Enoden tram along the coast, Hasedera's gardens and a shirasu bowl for lunch — the temples feel like an outdoor adventure rather than a museum.
- The Great Buddha has sat in the open since his hall was destroyed more than five centuries ago — eleven metres of bronze under sun and rain.
- Japan's first samurai capital: a coastal valley of temples and shrines backed by forested hills and surfable beaches.
- Hill trails link the temples through cedar and bamboo, and Hōkoku-ji serves matcha inside its bamboo grove.
- Shirasu — whitebait from Sagami Bay — is piled on rice along Komachi-dōri.
Shirasu whitebait — raw and translucent in season, or boiled — piled on rice, from Sagami Bay.
Matcha and wagashi in a temple tea room, the Zen habit Kamakura gave the rest of Japan.
Ait Benhaddou
Morocco
One man who lives here has been in ten films, because crews keep casting the village.
Saqqara
Egypt
The world's first monumental stone building, still standing on a desert plateau littered with unopened tombs.
Rosetta
Egypt
Ottoman mansions with mashrabiya screens leaning over lanes where the key to hieroglyphs was found.
Dahshur
Egypt
Two experimental pyramids alone in empty desert — one bent, one red, hardly a visitor.
Nikko
Japan
Gold-encrusted shrines hidden in cedar forest where a sleeping cat guards the gate.
Tono
Japan
A folklore valley where kappa haunt the ponds and every farmhouse once stabled a horse.
Sado Island
Japan
An exile island where gold miners, taiko drummers and crested ibis coexist in the fog.
Yoshino
Japan
Thirty thousand cherry trees blooming up a sacred mountain in pink tidal waves.