両街道の追分　草津　大つ迄三り半六丁

About this print

This woodblock print shows the oiwake, the fork in Kusatsu, Shiga, where the Tokaido and the Nakasendo roads part. It is one sheet from Tokai Meisho Kaisei Dochuki (Famous Places of the Tokaido, Revised Travel Guide), a series in which Utagawa Hiroshige III depicted the Tokaido post towns of the Meiji era. The record gives the title as Kaisei Gojusan Eki (The Fifty-three Stations, Revised), and it was published in 1875 (Meiji 8). The inscription "Otsu made san ri han roku cho" gives the distance to the next post town, Otsu: three and a half ri and six cho, old units that add up to about 14 kilometers.

Kusatsu was a key junction where two great highways, the Tokaido and the Nakasendo, parted and met again. At the fork, in 1816, a stone signpost nearly 4 meters tall was put up with donations from people who traveled the roads, such as courier agents. It is carved "Right: Tokaido, road to Ise" and "Left: Nakasendo, road to Mino."

The signpost still stands at the fork and is designated a cultural property of Kusatsu City. Nearby, the Kusatsu-juku Honjin, an inn for traveling lords and officials, was designated a National Historic Site in 1949 because it keeps its Edo-period appearance so well, and it is the largest of the honjin surviving in Japan.

Glossary