Yoshimizu Shrine

This guide to Yoshimizu Shrine in Nara centers on 1594, when the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi, at the height of his power, turned this mountain retreat into the site of an elaborate three-day cherry blossom celebration, widening the mountain road and even wiring cut branches onto bare trees so no guest would see an empty bough. It follows who climbed the slope with him, including his rival Tokugawa Ieyasu, and reaches back two centuries earlier to the small room called Senkyo no Ma, where the warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune once hid with his lover and retainer while fleeing his own brother's soldiers. Look for that doorway just off the hall Hideyoshi's entourage once filled with music and Noh theater.