Yamadera
Good to know
- Best time to go
- May–June for fresh green; October–November for autumn foliage
- Budget
- $
- Accessibility
- not-accessible
- Coordinates
- Open in maps
A mountain temple complex formally named Risshakuji, founded in 860 by the Tendai monk Ennin, whose main structures are distributed across a sheer rocky ridge rising above the town of Yamadera in Yamagata Prefecture. A stone staircase of over 1,000 steps ascends past moss-covered stone markers and small subsidiary halls to the Godaido overlook platform, which cantilevers above the valley with views of the valley below. The haiku poet Matsuo Basho visited in 1689 and composed a poem here that entered the Japanese literary canon.
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