Onomichi, despite being a quaint and rather lovely little town, likely won’t make it onto any standard Japan trip itinerary, especially not a first-timer’s… but it made it onto ours. When my partner injured himself a month before our trip and we had to come up with with an alternative to an intense four-day Kumano Kodo hike, we came across the Shimanami-Kaido cycling route, which starts from Onomichi and crosses six islands in the Seto Inland Sea, ending in Imabari, some 75km later. Located in eastern Hiroshima prefecture, about 45 minutes by train from the city, we shuffled some things around on our itinerary, and made it fit right after our two-day stay in Hiroshima.
We didn’t get to Onomichi until late at night, and the following day was entirely spent cycling and getting back from Imabari, so the only time we actually had to explore the town itself was for a couple of hours before catching the train that would take us to our next destination. The town actually extends from the mainland across some of the nearby islands, with small ferries connecting them, but since our time was limited, we stuck to the “downtown area”, characterized by many slopes, and a lot more temples than you’d expect a town of this size to have!
Other than being the starting point of the Shimanami-Kaido cycling route, it’s this density of temples that has become Onomichi’s prime attraction, with a designated walking route connecting twenty-five of them, aptly named “Temple Walk”. It’s about 2.5km long and can take anywhere between an hour or the better part of a day, depending on how much time is spent at each temple—and it should be noted that to reach many of the temples along the route, you have to deviate from the marked trail. We didn’t follow it through to the end, since our time ran out and we had to catch our train, but rather stuck to the area around Senkoji Park, which is situated on top of a hill, and can be reached either on foot, up narrow lanes and residential areas along Onomichi’s slopes, or via a ropeway.
Our first stop was the Senkoji Observation platform, which offers great (free!) views over the town and what looks like a river, but is really a narrow sliver of ocean separating Onomichi from its neighboring islands. The area was full of friendly stray cats who accompanied us to the top begging for pets and food, and once we got there, there was even a heart sculpture featuring two kittens just in front of the platform, among metal frames designed for love locks. It definitely looked like a popular destination for a romantic walk, and is supposedly in Japan’s top 100 best spots for cherry blossoms.
After as little as a couple of days in Japan, it’s easy to get what I started calling “temple/shrine fatigue”, and to be perfectly honest, Onomichi’s temples are small, and not much to write home about. However, we found the one that gives the park its name, Senkoji, to be unique enough to warrant a mention: Built into the rocky hillside just below the observation platform, this is where the Temple Walk eventually ends up, and it’s easy to see why they would’ve kept it as a highlight at the end of it.
Despite having all the things you’d expect from a Japanese temple, such as omikuji and ema, one of its most distinctive features were the hillside’s own boulders, which have been fitted with heavy chains. If you climb the rocks with the help of the linked loops of iron (it’s not a difficult climb; they’re surprisingly heavy, so they don’t move around much and make for good hand- and footholds, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone with a fear of heights), you eventually get to a small prayer shrine, but the reward is really the view.
I personally don’t think that Onomichi is worth going out of one’s way to fit it into one’s travel plans, but if you happen to be in the area for the Shimanami-Kaido cycling route anyway, then I highly suggest setting aside at least a couple of hours to also explore this charming little town. We may not have achieved enlightenment on our shortened Temple Walk, but we got some great panoramic ocean views, and a good workout.
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