Photo: Supanut Arunoprayote / CC BY 4.0Founded in 628, when two fishermen are said to have netted a small statue of Kannon from the Sumida River. The statue has never been publicly displayed — not once in fourteen centuries — and everything here was built around an object nobody has seen.
The buildings are not old. The main hall is a 1958 concrete rebuild after the March 1945 firebombing; the Kaminarimon gate was rebuilt in 1960, paid for by the founder of Panasonic in thanks for recovery from illness. What is genuinely old is Nakamise-dori, the 250-metre stall street whose families were granted their pitches in the late 1600s in exchange for cleaning the grounds.
What is genuinely old is Nakamise-dori, the 250-metre stall street whose families were granted their pitches in the late 1600s in exchange for cleaning the grounds.
Booked before you sail — there is no tour desk at the pier. Booking through these links supports the site.
5.0★ · 265 reviewsFrom US$143 per person.
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5.0★ · 172 reviewsFrom US$130 per person.
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5.0★ · 149 reviewsFrom US$314 per person.
See dates and book →By train, roughly forty to fifty-five minutes each way depending on which terminal your ship uses. That round trip is why Asakusa only works on a call of four hours or more, and why it should be the only major target if you have exactly that.
Before nine in the morning and after five in the evening. The temple grounds are open twenty-four hours and the buildings are floodlit at night, so an early or late visit gives you the same gate and hall with a fraction of the people.
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