Is Kunozan Toshogu worth visiting, and what actually remains?

Most visitors meet the Toshogu shrines at Nikko, north of Tokyo. Kunozan came first. Tokugawa Ieyasu — the warlord who won the battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and founded the Tokugawa shogunate, the military government that ruled Japan until 1868 — died in 1616 and left instructions that his body be buried on this hill. The shrine describes itself as the first foundation of the Toshogu tradition that later spread across the country.

The practical point for a traveller is that this is not a ruin. The main shrine buildings completed in 1617 are still standing and were designated a National Treasure — Japan’s highest heritage category — in December 2010. The two-storey gate, the sacred stable, the drum tower, the Hie Shrine and several other early-1600s structures survive as Important Cultural Properties, the tier immediately below National Treasure. Unlike most Japanese castle sites, where only stone walls and earthworks are left, here you look up at original lacquered and painted woodwork.

Compared with Nikko this is a smaller and much quieter site. That is not a drawback. The walk from the gate to the main hall is short, so the time you save goes into looking at the carvings instead of queueing.

Ropeway or 1,159 steps: decide before you set out

No road reaches Kunozan Toshogu, and cars cannot drive up to it. There are two entrances on opposite sides of the hill, and the one you choose changes your walking time, your effort, and — this catches people out — which bus stop you leave from.

• North entrance: Nihondaira plateau (日本平) → Nihondaira Ropeway → Kunozan upper station
• South entrance: Kunozan-shita bus stop (久能山下) → the old stone stairway, 1,159 steps → the shrine

I took the third option. Going down, the stairway was not hard work. It is worth knowing, though, that these are not modern engineered stairs. They are built from fitted stone blocks, and neither the height nor the depth of the steps is consistent, so you watch your feet even on the way down. Going up the same stairway is a real climb.

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Getting to Kunozan Toshogu from Shizuoka, Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka

Shizuoka sits on the Tokaido Shinkansen line roughly midway between Tokyo and Nagoya, which makes it an easy stop on a Tokyo–Kyoto itinerary rather than a detour. The practical base is JR Shizuoka Station (JR静岡駅). Both routes up the hill start there by local bus. I actually started one station further east, at JR Higashi-Shizuoka Station (JR東静岡駅), because the Nihondaira bus calls there too.

Do not confuse the two: Shizuoka Station is the Shinkansen stop, while Higashi-Shizuoka Station is a local-line station about one stop away with no Shinkansen service. Both are operated by JR Central, so a Japan Rail Pass covers the trains but not the buses or the ropeway.

Map: Higashi-Shizuoka Station to Nihondaira Ropeway

By public transport, from JR Higashi-Shizuoka Station to the Nihondaira Ropeway station

Bus destination displays and stop signs are mostly in Japanese. The characters to look for on the bus are 日本平ロープウェイ for the ropeway terminus, and 久能山下 if you are heading for the foot of the stairway instead.

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Allow a few minutes at Nihondaira before boarding the ropeway. In early April the cherry trees were in flower and Mount Fuji stood clearly beyond Shimizu Port. Getting Mount Fuji and Suruga Bay on the same short trip is one of the genuine advantages of approaching from this side.

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What it costs and how long to allow: tickets, bundles and bus fares

Admission is split three ways: the shrine buildings, the museum, or a combined ticket. If you want to see Ieyasu’s personal possessions and the shogunal arms and armour, take the combined ticket. If you are here for the architecture and the tomb alone, the shrine ticket is enough. If you are using the ropeway, there are bundles that include a return ride, but the discount is not what you would expect — on one of them there is no discount at all, which is worth knowing before you queue.

Ticket	Shrine	Museum	Combined
Adults (high school age and above)	¥700	¥600	¥1,200
Children (elementary and junior high)	¥300	¥300	¥500

Individual rates, checked against the shrine’s official information on 26 September 2026. Separate rates exist for groups of 15 or more and for visitors holding a Japanese disability certificate.

Ropeway bundle	Adult	Junior high	Elementary
Two-part ticket (return ride + shrine)	¥1,950	¥1,550	¥930
Three-part ticket (return ride + shrine + museum)	¥2,300	¥1,700	¥1,100

Nihondaira Ropeway rates, checked 26 September 2026. Both bundles assume a return ride, so they do not suit the ropeway-up, stairway-down route.

What the bundles actually save, and what the whole trip costs

The answer is not what the word “bundle” suggests. The two-part ticket costs exactly the same as buying a return ropeway ride and a shrine ticket separately — there is no discount at all, only the convenience of one transaction instead of two. The three-part ticket does save money if you are going to the museum: ¥150 for an adult.

Calculated from the published rates of Nihondaira Ropeway and Kunozan Toshogu, checked 26 September 2026. The two operators draw the adult line in different places: the ropeway charges the adult fare from junior high school age, while the shrine charges the adult rate only from high school age. That is why a junior high school student pays an adult ropeway fare and a child admission.

If you are riding the ropeway both ways, though, there is a cheaper way still. Shizutetsu Bus sells a combined ticket covering the bus, the ropeway and admission — ¥3,000 for an adult, ¥1,450 for a child. It includes the bus both ways between Shizuoka Station / Shin-Shizuoka and Nihondaira Ropeway, the ropeway both ways, and the combined admission ticket for the shrine and the museum (Shizutetsu Bus information, checked 26 September 2026).

Calculated from the published rates of Shizutetsu Bus, Nihondaira Ropeway and Kunozan Toshogu, checked 26 September 2026.

That is ¥870 less than buying the parts separately and ¥720 less than the ropeway’s own three-part ticket. It also produces an oddity worth noticing: at ¥3,000 with the museum included, it costs less than the ¥3,370 you would pay for a round trip with shrine admission and no museum at all. If you are making a return trip from Shizuoka Station, start here. It is sold at the Shin-Shizuoka and Shizuoka Station bus offices, and also as a digital ticket through the RYDE PASS app; it is valid for one nominated day only.

The catch is the bus section, which runs between Shizuoka Station / Shin-Shizuoka and Nihondaira Ropeway and nowhere else. If you board at Higashi-Shizuoka, as on this visit, or if you walk down the stairway and take the bus back from the coast, the return half goes unused and buying the parts separately works out cheaper.

Adding the buses gives you the real cost of the visit. These are the fares paid on 3 April 2026. Bus fares are revised from time to time, so check the current figure with Shizutetsu Just Line on the day.

Bus leg (one way)	Fare
JR Higashi-Shizuoka Station → Nihondaira Ropeway	¥570
JR Shizuoka Station → Nihondaira Ropeway	¥710
Kunono-kyoku-mae (久能局前, at the foot of the stairway on the coast) → JR Shizuoka Station	¥650

Fares paid on 3 April 2026. Starting from Higashi-Shizuoka rather than Shizuoka saves ¥140 each way, ¥280 on a return trip. Higashi-Shizuoka is one stop east of Shizuoka on the JR Tokaido Line, and the Nihondaira bus calls at both.

Put together, one adult pays this much for each way of doing it.

Starting from JR Higashi-Shizuoka Station. From Shizuoka Station, add ¥280 to the bus cost of a return trip.

Going up by ropeway and walking down the stairway comes out ¥470 cheaper for the shrine alone, or ¥320 cheaper with the museum, and it gets you the 1,159 steps as well. What you give up is the symmetry: you come back to the city from the coast road rather than from Nihondaira. The steps are uneven in height even going down, so this is not a decision to make on price alone.

For timing, the shrine publishes segment estimates: about 30 minutes from the stone gateway at the foot of the hill to the shrine office, about 10 minutes from there to the main hall, about 5 minutes on to the mausoleum, and 30 to 40 minutes for the museum. Added together, climbing the stairway and seeing the museum comes to roughly 90 minutes to two hours.

In practice, stopping constantly for photographs, it took me about two hours and fifteen minutes from arriving at the top of the ropeway to reaching the bottom of the stairway, including about 20 minutes in the museum. The one hard limit to keep in mind is the 16:50 cut-off for admission.

Why Ieyasu was buried here: his 1616 instructions and the 1617 shrine

Tokugawa Ieyasu was born at Okazaki Castle in Mikawa Province — today the eastern part of Aichi Prefecture — in the twelfth month of 1542 by the old Japanese calendar. He died in 1616 at the age of 75 at Sunpu, the castle town that is now central Shizuoka City. According to the shrine, his own instructions meant that he was carried up to Kunozan and buried the same night.

Construction of the shrine over that grave began in May 1616 and was finished in December 1617, about a year and seven months later. The work was directed by Nakai Masakiyo, the shogunate’s chief carpenter. Ieyasu was enshrined under the divine name Tosho Daigongen (東照大権現), and the architectural form used here is known as gongen-zukuri after that name. The shrine states that this became the model for the many Toshogu shrines founded across Japan afterwards.

One point deserves care, because sources word it differently. Kunozan Toshogu states today that the mausoleum stands on the spot where Ieyasu’s body was buried. A reference case published by the Edo-Tokyo Museum library, on the other hand, cites literature saying that his coffin was moved from Kunozan to Nikko in 1617. Where his remains finally lie is therefore described differently depending on the source. This guide treats as established only what both accounts share: that he was buried at Kunozan in 1616, and that an enshrinement at Nikko followed in 1617.

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Beside the mausoleum stands a large camphor tree the shrine calls the money tree. Its information board explains that Ieyasu once drew three trunks for his retainers — labelled moderation, compassion and honesty — and told them that believing in these would always bring prosperity. Read the board first, then look up at the tree: it makes clear that this hilltop was laid out as a place of instruction as well as a grave.

Before the shrine: Kunozan was a temple, and then a castle

Two earlier layers of history sit under the shrine. Knowing them changes how the stone walls and the shape of the ground read when you are standing there.

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Kunozan and Nikko Toshogu: first burial, first shrine, later Nikko

Kunozan and Nikko are not rivals, and neither is the “real” one. They are different stages of the same plan. Ieyasu died in 1616 and was buried at Kunozan under his own instructions; the enshrinement at Nikko followed in 1617. Kunozan Toshogu presents itself as the first foundation of the Toshogu tradition, and its gongen-zukuri shrine as the model that the later shrines followed.

What most visitors photograph at Nikko today — the Yomeimon gate, the walls of dense carving — belongs to the great rebuilding of 1636, not to the original foundation of 1617. Those are two separate events, which is why this guide avoids the common shorthand that Kunozan predates Nikko by a set number of years. The useful comparison is not the gap in years but the direction of influence: the form appears at Kunozan first, and spreads from there.

If Nikko is already on your itinerary, two companion guides on this site may help. Nikkō Tōshōgū: what the shrine’s design is trying to make you believe follows how the idea of enshrining Ieyasu as a deity, which starts here, was expanded at Nikko. For the practical side, see the Nikko Toshogu visitor guide.

What to see on site: eight places not to walk past

These are listed in the order I walked them, coming up by ropeway and leaving down the stairway. Open any card for more photographs, a rough time to allow, and a note on whether the structure is original or a former site.

The Kunozan Toshogu Museum: Ieyasu’s own possessions, and a no-photography rule

The museum stands close to the ticket counter. According to the museum, its holdings number more than 2,000 items, and its particular strengths are the group of objects Ieyasu used personally and a substantial collection of arms and armour belonging to successive Tokugawa shoguns. Even if you came for the architecture, this is worth the extra ticket.

I spent about 20 minutes inside in April 2026. What stayed with me was a gilded suit of armour, which the shrine presents as having belonged to Ieyasu himself. Standing in front of it, the striking thing is not the gold but the plain fact that a man wore it and moved in it. Displays are rotated, so check the current exhibition on the official site before you go.

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Goshuin: a seal slip cut from cedar, and a JR Central collaboration

A goshuin is a seal and calligraphy record of a visit, written into a book that pilgrims carry from shrine to shrine. At Kunozan Toshogu they are issued at the reception desk at the shrine office. The shrine gives the standard goshuin as ¥500, brushed directly into your book, with the desk open from 9am to 5pm (checked 26 September 2026).

The one worth going out of your way for is made of wood. It is the “money tree” goshuin, and the shrine describes it as a seal slip made from cedar, with the scent of the wood still on it. It costs ¥1,000. Because it is wood rather than paper, it cannot be brushed into a goshuin book and is issued as a loose slip only. It refers to the large camphor known as the money tree that stands beside Ieyasu’s mausoleum, and to the precept attached to it — so it reads differently if you walk the mausoleum approach first.

There is also a special goshuin that comes with a JR Central product rather than with a visit. JR Central’s information describes a bundle of a specially designed amulet carrying a Shinkansen motif and a special goshuin bearing the ichi-fuji ni-taka san-nasubi motif associated with Ieyasu, sold together with the combined shrine and museum admission ticket. It is booked in advance through JR Central’s “EX Tabisaki Yoyaku” service, so it is not something you can decide on once you are standing at the shrine office. The contents and the period change, so check JR Central’s current information before you travel (position as of 26 September 2026).

Fitting Kunozan into a Japan itinerary

Kunozan takes half a day at most, which makes Shizuoka a natural half-day stop rather than an overnight commitment. If you are travelling between Tokyo and Kyoto on the Tokaido Shinkansen, you can leave Tokyo in the morning, see the shrine, and be in Kyoto the same evening — provided you take Hikari or Kodama trains, since the fastest Nozomi services do not stop at Shizuoka.

If you want to add more Tokugawa history in the same city, the site of Sunpu Castle — where Ieyasu spent his last years — is a park near Shizuoka Station and is easy to reach on foot from there.

Three other places filled the rest of that day. One is a small shrine you can reach on the way to the ropeway; the other two have nothing to do with Ieyasu but are worth knowing about, because one of them cannot be had anywhere else in Japan and the other is a pilgrimage site in its own right for a particular kind of traveller.

Frequently asked questions

Related Pages

Official sources

Fares, opening hours and operating days change. This guide reflects official information as of 26 September 2026. Please check the official pages before you travel.