Sakashita-juku
Sakashita-juku (坂下宿 Sakashita-juku) was the forty-eighth of the fifty-three stations (shukuba) of the Tōkaidō. It is located in former Ise Province in what is now part of the city of Kameyama, Mie Prefecture, Japan.
History
Sakashita flourished as a post town during the Edo period because of its location at the entrance to Suzuka Pass (鈴鹿峠 Suzuka Tōge) connecting Ise Province to former Omi Province.[1] However, the Suzuka Pass was also the reason for the post town's decline in the Meiji period; the pass was too steep for rail lines to be laid, so the rail went through Tsuge Station (present-day Iga), bypassing the formerly flourishing town.
Today, there are only a few private residences left at the site of the former post station, as well as very little historical architecture. The only thing that marks the former site is a stone marker built by the former town of Seki, now part of the city of Kameyama.
The classic ukiyoe print by Ando Hiroshige (Hoeido edition) from 1831-1834 does not depicts the post station at all, but instead shows an open teahouse, looking across a ravine to the blue heights of the Suzuka Mountains.
Neighboring post towns
- Tōkaidō
- Seki-juku - Sakashita-juku - Tsuchiyama-juku
References
- ↑ Sakashita-juku & Suzuka Pass Area. Kameyama City Tourism Association. Accessed January 13, 2007.
Further reading
- Carey, Patrick. Rediscovering the Old Tokaido:In the Footsteps of Hiroshige. Global Books UK (2000). ISBN 1-901903-10-9
- Chiba, Reiko. Hiroshige's Tokaido in Prints and Poetry. Tuttle. (1982) ISBN 0-8048-0246-7
- Taganau, Jilly. The Tokaido Road: Travelling and Representation in Edo and Meiji Japan. RoutledgeCurzon (2004). ISBN 0-415-31091-1
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||