Iwakuni

岩国 · Kintaikyō's five wooden arches and a hillside castle 45 minutes west of Hiroshima

Iwakuni sits across the Yamaguchi border, anchored by Kintaikyō — five sequential wooden arch spans on stone piers, 175 meters across the Nishiki River, built in 1673 by the third lord of Iwakuni Domain and designated a National Treasure in 1922. The current bridge dates to a 1953 reconstruction after a 1950 typhoon flood; the wooden parts are renewed every 20 years through a kakekae tradition that keeps the form, not the timber, original. Above the bridge, Iwakuni Castle reads as a 1962 reconstruction of the 1608 Kikkawa-clan hilltop fortress dismantled in 1615 under the Tokugawa one-castle-per-province edict; a ropeway climbs to it from Kikko Park. The Iwakuni White Snake House holds the albino Japanese rat snakes designated a National Natural Monument in 1972 — found only in Iwakuni and treated as messengers of the goddess Benzaiten. Iwakuni-zushi, a layered pressed sushi cut into squares, is the regional food. Reach via JR Sanyō Line from Hiroshima Station (~50 minutes to Iwakuni Station) or Shinkansen to Shin-Iwakuni.

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