Three days in Kamakura: a shogun's capital that turned into a beach town

Two nights in one hotel: the shrine and the money-washing cave on arrival, the Zen temples of Kita-Kamakura on the full day, and the Great Buddha on the last morning.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Kamakura
Places
8 across 3 days
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Kamakura ran Japan from 1185 to 1333. The shoguns picked it because it is almost impossible to attack: hills on three sides, the sea on the fourth, and the only ways in are narrow cuttings hacked through the ridges. When power moved back to Kyoto the town stopped growing, which is the reason so much of what they built is still standing in the valleys.

It is now a seaside commuter town of about 170,000 people, an hour from Tokyo, and it wears both halves comfortably. Surfers on the sand in the morning, a thirteenth century Zen monastery up the valley in the afternoon, and a main street full of good bakeries in between.

Almost everybody comes for the day and most of them come at the weekend, which is worth planning around rather than ignoring. On a Sunday in June the hydrangea temples run timed entry and the trains out to the coast are standing room only. On a Tuesday in February you will have Zen gardens to yourself.

Three days splits neatly by geography: the centre and the hills on the first afternoon, the northern temple valley on the full day, and the coast and the Great Buddha before you leave.

Highlights

  • Washing your money in a cave shrine that is entered through a tunnel
  • Thirteenth century Zen monasteries in a cedar valley, taken in one downhill line
  • The Great Buddha sitting in the open air where his hall used to be
  • The Enoden line, one carriage wide, running between houses and then along the sea

Where to stay

Kamakura, two nights

One base for all three days. Nothing here is more than about twenty minutes from the station by bus, tram or bicycle.

The town sits in a bowl of wooded ridges opening onto the beach, and the temples are tucked into the side valleys running off it. Each valley is a separate outing from the centre rather than a stop on the way to the next one.

Day by day

Day 1 in Kamakura

Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, a cave shrine and the beach at dusk

Start on the axis the shoguns laid out. Wakamiya-oji runs arrow-straight from the sea to the shrine, and walking up it, past Komachi-dori and the torii gates, is the fastest way to understand how the town was planned.

From behind the shrine, cut west into the hills for the money-washing shrine, then come back down to the sand for the end of the afternoon. It is about five kilometres of walking in total, most of it flat.

  1. 14:30

    Tsurugaoka Hachimangū Shrine

    Visit

    The shrine at the head of the avenue, founded by Minamoto no Yoritomo, the first shogun, and the town's ceremonial centre ever since. Broad steps, a vermilion hall at the top and a dance stage in the middle of the plaza where a captured warrior's mistress was made to perform for her lover's enemy. Twice a year there is yabusame here, archery from a galloping horse in full armour. A million people come on New Year's Day.

  2. 16:00

    Zeniarai Benten Shrine

    Visit

    Twenty minutes uphill and west, and the entrance is a tunnel bored straight through the rock. Inside the hollow is a spring, and the custom is to wash your money in a basket in it, which is supposed to double it. Everybody does it, nobody entirely disbelieves it, and the cave full of candle smoke and coins is the most atmospheric ten minutes in Kamakura.

  3. 17:15

    Yuigahama

    Nature

    The town beach, a broad grey crescent ten minutes south of the station, with surfers out until dark and Mount Fuji on the horizon on a clear winter afternoon. Boards and wetsuits rent by the day from shops along the front. In summer there are beach huts and an evening firework display over the water.

  4. 19:00

    Dinner off Komachi-dori

    Eat

    The lanes either side of the pedestrian street have the small izakaya and the shirasu specialists. Kitchens here stop early by Tokyo standards.

With more time: The eastern valley is the quiet half of Kamakura and gets missed. Hokokuji has a bamboo grove with a tea house in the middle of it, best in the first hour after opening, and Sugimotodera up the road is the oldest temple in town, founded in 734, reached by a flight of mossy stone steps.

Day 2 in Kamakura

The Zen temples of Kita-Kamakura, walked downhill

Take the train one stop north to Kita-Kamakura and walk back. The valley holds the great Zen foundations of the Kamakura period in a line along one road, and doing it in this direction means the gradient is with you all day.

These are working monasteries rather than museums. Cedar, gravel, dark timber and very little gold, which is the whole difference between Zen and everything you will have seen in Kyoto or Nara.

  1. 09:00

    Engakuji

    Religious

    Straight out of the station and up the steps. Founded in 1282 for the soldiers killed repelling the Mongol invasion the year before, and second in rank among Kamakura's five great Zen temples. The relic hall is said to hold a tooth of the Buddha. Climb to the bell tower on the hill behind, where there is a tea house that serves tokoroten, cold seaweed noodles, an acquired taste you may as well acquire here.

  2. 10:30

    Tōkeiji

    Religious

    Across the road and much smaller. It was founded as a convent and spent six centuries as one of the very few places in Japan where a woman could escape a marriage: stay three years and the divorce was granted, which earned it the name of the temple you run into. The graveyard under the trees at the back is the best part, and the plum trees flower in February.

  3. 12:00

    Soba and kenchin-jiru

    Eat

    The road between the temples has several soba houses. Order the temple soup with it; it is said to have started in the monastery kitchen up the road.

  4. 13:30

    Kenchōji

    Religious

    First in rank among the five and the oldest Zen training monastery in Kamakura, laid out in 1253 on a Chinese plan with the gates, hall and lecture hall on one axis. The bell is a National Treasure and the garden behind the main hall is attributed to a fourteenth century abbot. Monks still train here, and if you keep going up the steps behind the temple you come out on the ridge with the whole town below.

With more time: Meigetsuin is a five minute detour off the same road and is the hydrangea temple, thousands of blue heads packed along its steps in June, with a famous round window looking onto the back garden. It runs timed entry in season and is nearly empty the rest of the year.

Day 3 in Kamakura

The Great Buddha and Hasedera at Hase

The last morning goes west on the Enoden, three stops to Hase. The two things worth doing there are ten minutes apart and both open early, so an unhurried morning still leaves an afternoon train.

If you have the time, stay on the tram instead of turning back. It runs on to the coast, along the sea wall and out to Enoshima, and the ride itself is one of the best things in the area.

  1. 09:00

    Kōtokuin

    Religious

    The Great Buddha, 13.35 metres of bronze Amida cast around 1252 and the second largest such statue in Japan after Nara's. It was built inside a vast wooden hall, which a tsunami swept away and nobody rebuilt, so he has been sitting outdoors for five hundred years. You can go inside the statue for a small extra fee, though you get about a minute in there before the heat moves you on.

  2. 10:15

    Hasedera

    Religious

    Ten minutes downhill, a temple built up a hillside in terraces with a view over the rooftops to the bay from the top one. The main hall holds a gilded eleven-headed Kannon, the largest wooden statue in Japan, and there is a low, dim grotto in the grounds carved with small figures of Benzaiten that you shuffle through bent double. The hydrangea path here is the one everyone queues for in June.

With more time: A few stops further west, Kamakurakokomae station sits directly on the beach, and the level crossing outside it is the one from the opening titles of Slam Dunk. Expect a small crowd of people photographing a railway crossing, and join them.

Before you go

Where to stay

Near Kamakura station is the practical answer: both railways, the buses and the main street all start there, and the walk home at night is five minutes rather than a bus timetable.

The alternative is the coast around Hase or Shichirigahama, which is quieter, has the sea outside the window and puts you a tram ride from everything else. Choose it if the beach is part of why you are coming.

Kita-Kamakura has a handful of temple lodgings and inns among the cedars. Lovely, and remote enough after dark that dinner needs thinking about.

Getting in and around

From Tokyo, the JR Yokosuka line runs direct from Tokyo station to Kamakura in about an hour, with Kita-Kamakura the stop before. From Narita, change onto the same line off the Narita Express and allow around two hours; from Haneda it is quicker via Yokohama.

The town is just too spread out to walk end to end. Buses fan out from the station forecourt, and the Enoden, a single-track electric railway squeezed between garden walls, runs west to Hase, the beaches and Enoshima. A day pass on it pays off if you make two trips.

Bicycles rent by the hour near the station and are the best way to handle the eastern valleys, which are the ones the buses serve worst.

Timing and crowds

June is hydrangea season and it is genuinely mobbed: the famous temples issue numbered tickets and the queues run down the lane. Late autumn colour in November is nearly as busy. Both are worth it if you start at opening.

Temples here generally open at around half past eight or nine and close at half past four, earlier in winter. This is a town that shuts in the afternoon, so front-load the day and leave the beach and dinner for later.

Weekdays are a different town from weekends. If you have any choice at all, take the weekday.

Eating and drinking

Shirasu, tiny whitebait, is the local dish, served raw on rice if it is in season and boiled if it is not. Half the restaurants along the coast road do a shirasu bowl and it is what to order.

Komachi-dori, the pedestrian street beside the station, is the eating and browsing lane: croquettes, soft serve, senbei crackers grilled in front of you. It is crowded and it is fun.

Kenchoji gave its name to kenchin-jiru, a clear vegetable and tofu soup that Zen kitchens made from offcuts. Several places around Kita-Kamakura serve it with soba.

Kamakura is the rare medieval capital you can reach on a commuter train. The temples are the reason to come and the sea is the reason to stay the night.

Go on a weekday, start early, and take the tram at least once further than you need to.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is Kamakura worth three days, or is it a day trip?
As a day trip you get the Great Buddha, the shrine and one temple valley, which is a good day. Three days gets you the eastern valleys, the Zen monasteries properly, the coast and the evenings after the day trippers leave on the 17:00 train.
How much walking is there?
About five kilometres on the first day and six or seven on the second, with steps at every temple. The Kita-Kamakura walk is downhill in the direction described here and a slog in the other.
When should I go?
June for hydrangeas and November for maples are the two showpiece seasons and the two most crowded. February is cold, clear, empty and has plum blossom. Summer is for the beach rather than the temples.
Do I need to book anything?
No. Temples take cash at the gate, a few hundred yen each, and none of them can be reserved. Bring coins.
Can I rearrange the days?
Copy the trip and move things about freely; the only day with a fixed order is the second, which works because it runs downhill.