東海道　金谷日坂之間菊川

About this print

This nishiki-e (multicolored woodblock print) shows Kikugawa in Shimada, Shizuoka Prefecture. As the title says, it is a village between Kanaya and Nissaka, two post towns on the Tokaido highway. It appears to be one sheet from a series in which many artists each drew different places along the Tokaido to mark the shogun Tokugawa Iemochi's trip to Kyoto in 1863 (Bunkyu 3), and the artist is thought to be Utagawa Hiroshige II.

Kikugawa prospered as an ai no shuku, a resting place between two post towns. The road between Kanaya and Nissaka was a hard stretch, with one slope after another over the Makinohara Plateau. There is also a story that Muneyuki, a court noble with the rank of Chunagon (middle counselor), wrote a poem here after he was captured in the Jokyu War of 1221, in the Kamakura period.

On the road down from Kanaya to Kikugawa, a stone-paved path believed to have been laid in the Edo period survives for 161 meters as the Kikugawa-zaka slope, and it is designated a historic site of Shizuoka Prefecture. You can still walk it and follow the traces of the old Tokaido.

Glossary