Nikko

The mountains here were sacred long before the shoguns arrived. Tradition holds that the monk Shodo founded a hermitage at the foot of Mount Nantai in 766 and later climbed the peak, establishing a centre of shugendo, the mountain asceticism that blended Buddhist and Shinto practice. Rinnoji and Futarasan grew from those beginnings, and by the medieval period the complex held large monastic estates, though it suffered when it backed the losing side in the wars of the 16th century.

Its transformation came after the death of Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1616. The founder of the shogunate was enshrined here as a deity, and from 1634 his grandson Iemitsu had the Toshogu rebuilt on an extraordinary scale, employing thousands of craftsmen for work covered in carving, lacquer and gold leaf that broke with the restraint of earlier Japanese religious architecture. Iemitsu's own mausoleum, Taiyuinbyo, was built nearby in 1653. Shoguns travelled the road from Edo to pay their respects, and the cedar avenue planted along the approach — tens of thousands of trees given over two decades by a single retainer — still lines the way in.

After 1868 the shrines lost their state patronage and the Buddhist and Shinto institutions were separated by law. The town found a second life as a resort: Western diplomats built summer villas at Lake Chuzenji to escape the heat of Tokyo, the Kanaya Hotel opened in 1873, and railways from Tokyo arrived in the early 20th century. To the south, the Ashio copper mine poisoned the Watarase valley and provoked Japan's first great environmental protest. The shrines and temples were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999, and municipal mergers in 2006 made Nikko one of the largest cities in Japan by area.

Nikko's identity rests on the meeting of mountain religion and shogunal power. Priests still perform the rituals of Futarasan on the summit of Mount Nantai in summer, and the shrine's festivals fill the streets with floats in spring. The best known event is the procession of a thousand armoured marchers held in May and repeated on a smaller scale in autumn, which recreates the journey of Ieyasu's remains to the mountain and is accompanied by horseback archery along the cedar avenue.

The craft tradition follows the buildings. Generations of carpenters, carvers, lacquer workers and gilders have maintained the shrines, whose surfaces are repainted and regilded in long restoration cycles, and Nikko-bori woodcarving is sold in the town. The carvings themselves have entered everyday Japanese culture: the three monkeys who see, hear and speak no evil are on a stable in the precinct, and the sleeping cat above a corridor is almost as familiar.

Visitors have been part of local life for 150 years. The lake villas of foreign diplomats, the old hotels and the mountaineering and fishing clubs left a distinctly international layer on a small mountain town, and the tourist trade still shapes the calendar: quiet winters, a busy spring, and an autumn when the whole district fills. Residents of the outlying valleys keep their own festivals, including the winter snow-hut celebrations of Yunishigawa.

About 80,000 people live in the city of Nikko, spread very thinly across more than 1,400 square kilometres of mountains, forest and river valleys — the result of a 2006 merger that joined the old shrine town with Imaichi, Ashio, Kuriyama and Fujihara. Most residents live in the lower eastern districts around Imaichi rather than by the shrines.

Tourism, forestry, hydroelectric power and food production dominate the economy, along with the hotels of Kinugawa and the lake. The population is ageing and falling, schools in the upland villages have closed or combined, and the city works to keep bus services running to settlements with few residents. Heavy snow, road closures and wildlife damage to crops are ordinary parts of the year.

The rhythm of the town follows the day-trippers: coaches and trains arrive through the morning, the shrine precinct empties by late afternoon, and evenings are quiet enough that many restaurants close early. In the high country the seasons are sharper still, with the lake settlement busy from spring to late autumn and much of it shut through the deepest part of winter.

Yuba is the dish that belongs to Nikko. The delicate skin that forms on heated soy milk was developed as protein for monks and priests on a meat-free diet, and the town serves it rolled into bundles, simmered in broth, fried, wrapped around vegetables or laid raw with soy sauce and wasabi. Set meals built around it are on menus all along the main street, and shops sell it dried to take away.

Buckwheat is the other staple, made into soba with clear mountain water and eaten cold with a dipping sauce or hot with wild vegetables and tempura. Freshwater fish matter here in a way they do not on the coast: trout and himemasu, a landlocked salmon, come from Lake Chuzenji and are grilled with salt or served raw in the lakeside restaurants. In winter, hotpots of local chicken, mushrooms and root vegetables suit the cold.

Sweets and preserves fill the shops. Nikko yokan, a firm sweet bean jelly, is a long-standing souvenir, sold plain or with chestnut, and steamed manju buns are eaten hot near the bridge. The surrounding prefecture contributes strawberries, which Tochigi is known for across Japan, and sake from small breweries in the valleys. Ice cream flavoured with soy milk or strawberry is the standard walking snack on the shrine approach.