Before we left Hiroshima, we did a day trip to Iwakuni. Unlike our other day trips, for this one, we actually had a car. We had a friend who was in Hiroshima, and we wanted to meet her and do something together. As she had a car, she proposed going to Iwakuni, as none of us had the chance to visit this place yet.
Iwakuni is a city in Yamaguchi Prefecture, and is the southernmost part of Honshu that I actually explored. It is historically significant, and has a castle on a hill. There's also a very historic bridge, which serves as the focal point of almost every touristic visit to Iwakuni, including ours.
To get to the castle, we had to ride a cable car. We parked our car on the bottom, and procured cable car tickets. We were visiting in the late afternoon, so we didn't check out the interior of the castle. We just wanted to see the exterior views, as well as the surroundings. The above photos show the castle as well as the gardens surrounding it.
The city is down below, visible from the castle. It isn't the largest Japanese city, but Japan after all is very urban, so even a small city like Iwakuni has a significant population. After spending sometime near the castle, we made our way back and headed to the centre.
The most famous fixture of Iwakuni is Kintai Bridge. It is a historical wooden arch bridge, built in 1673. It is composed of 5 sequential wooden arch bridges on 4 stone piers. In 1922 it was declared as a National Treasure.
I learned that every now and then, the river floods. However, during our visit, the waters were relatively low, and we could come up close to the base pillars, as the riverbed was rather dry near the shore. I saw some historical photos of this bridge during a flood that I find it fascinating that the river can rise that high!
Eventually, we made our way back to our car and called it a day. After having dinner with our friends, we retreated back to our hotel, and the day after we headed to the train station to catch another Shinkansen train. It was time to move on.
