Zuiganji (瑞巌寺) 瑞巌寺
The cedar avenue is gone: salt from the 2011 tsunami killed three hundred of the trees.
Zen temple founded in the ninth century and rebuilt by Date Masamune, who had the main hall built in 1609, bringing in craftsmen from Kyoto and the Kansai. The hall measures 38 metres across the front by 24.2 deep and 17.3 high at the ridge, and is divided into ten rooms (the peacock room, the falcon room, the chrysanthemum room, the pine room) with painted sliding panels; the paintings you see today are copies made from 1985 onwards, and the originals are in the temple museum. The main hall and the kitchen with its corridor have been National Treasures since 1953. The caves along the avenue are what remains of twelve small temples that stood six on each side: the oldest visible one is from the seventeenth century, but traces dating back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries have been found under the rock.
Miyagi
Matsushima-Kaigan, Takagimachi
