Miho no Matsubara
Interesting facts
- ICOMOS at first advised leaving Miho out of the Mount Fuji World Heritage listing because it lies some 45 km from the mountain; the committee kept it in.
- When it became a Place of Scenic Beauty in 1922 the grove held about 93,000 pines; by 2014 only around 30,700 were counted.
- The second-generation Hagoromo pine was reckoned to be about 650 years old, roughly 10 metres tall and 5 metres round the trunk.
- As that old tree declined, a younger pine was named the third Hagoromo pine in October 2010, and the old one was felled in July 2013.
- Since 1989 the shore has been protected from erosion by L-shaped groynes and offshore breakwaters that help keep sand on the beach.
- Miho already appears in poems of the Man'yลshลซ, Japan's oldest anthology of poetry, compiled in the 8th century.
- The French dancer Hรฉlรจne Giuglaris never saw Miho; after her death in 1951 her husband brought a lock of her hair here, and a memorial followed in 1952.
Why it is worth it
A sweep of black sand and pine forest some 7 km long curves along Suruga Bay, and across the water, on clear days, the cone of Mount Fuji rises above the sea. Miho no Matsubara, the pine grove of Miho, has been painted, sung and staged for centuries, and since 2013 it has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage site Fujisan, sacred place and source of artistic inspiration, recognised for the part it played in the art and imagination surrounding the mountain.
The grove covers the shore of the Miho peninsula, in the Shimizu ward of Shizuoka. Tens of thousands of pines grow along it. From the shore the view also takes in the Izu peninsula across the bay. The Japanese government designated the grove a Place of Scenic Beauty in 1922, and in 1916 it was chosen as one of the New Three Views of Japan. Its sand was once white, but has grown darker, probably because less sediment now reaches the coast from the Abe River.
The grove is bound up with the legend of the Hagoromo, the feathered robe. In the version told in the Noh play of that name, recorded by the early sixteenth century, the fisherman Hakuryล finds a robe of feathers hanging on a pine at Miho. It belongs to a celestial maiden who cannot return to heaven without it, and he gives it back in exchange for a dance. The pine associated with the story, the Hagoromo no Matsu, stands by the shore, and a pine-lined path of about 500 metres, the Kami-no-michi, connects it with Miho Shrine, which keeps a fragment said to come from the robe. Each October a Hagoromo festival is held with Noh performed by firelight. Hiroshige included the grove in his woodblock series of famous places, and a monument by the shore honours the French dancer Hรฉlรจne Giuglaris and holds a lock of her hair.
Getting there
The grove lies on the Miho peninsula, about 13 km from central Shizuoka in a straight line. The nearest railway station is Shimizu on the JR Tลkaidล Line, from which buses run to stops near the grove. The nearest airport is Mount Fuji Shizuoka Airport (FSZ), about 38 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Miho no Matsubara is a scenic area on the Miho Peninsula in Shimizu Ward of Shizuoka City, Japan. Its seven-kilometre seashore is lined with pine trees. It is the location of the legend upon which the Noh drama Hagoromo is based; on the second Saturday and Sunday of October, the city of Shizuoka holds a Hagoromo Festival and a performance of the Noh drama takes place near the pine tree of the legend.
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