Sakashita-juku

Sakashita-juku (坂下宿, Sakashita-juku) was the forty-eighth of the fifty-three stations (shukuba) of the Tōkaidō. It is located in former Ise Province in what is now part of the city of Kameyama, Mie Prefecture, Japan.

Sakashita-juku in the 1830s, as depicted by Hiroshige in the Hōeidō edition of The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō (1831–1834)

History

Sakashita flourished as a post town during the Edo period because of its location at the entrance to Suzuka Pass (鈴鹿峠, Suzuka Tōge) connecting Ise Province to former Omi Province.[1] However, the Suzuka Pass was also the reason for the post town's decline in the Meiji period; the pass was too steep for rail lines to be laid, so the rail went through Tsuge Station (present-day Iga), bypassing the formerly flourishing town.

Today, there are only a few private residences left at the site of the former post station, as well as very little historical architecture. The only thing that marks the former site is a stone marker built by the former town of Seki, now part of the city of Kameyama.

The classic ukiyo-e print by Andō Hiroshige (Hōeidō edition) from 1831–1834 does not depicts the post station at all, but instead shows an open teahouse, looking across a ravine to the blue heights of the Suzuka Mountains.

Neighboring post towns
Tōkaidō
Seki-juku - Sakashita-juku - Tsuchiyama-juku
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References
  1. Sakashita-juku & Suzuka Pass Area. Kameyama City Tourism Association. Accessed January 13, 2007.

Further reading
  • Carey, Patrick. Rediscovering the Old Tokaido:In the Footsteps of Hiroshige. Global Books UK (2000). ISBN 1-901903-10-9
  • Chiba, Reiko. Hiroshige's Tokaido in Prints and Poetry. Tuttle. (1982) ISBN 0-8048-0246-7
  • Taganau, Jilly. The Tokaido Road: Travelling and Representation in Edo and Meiji Japan. RoutledgeCurzon (2004). ISBN 0-415-31091-1

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