One of the top three views in Japan is of the giant, “floating” torii gate just off the little island of Miyajima. Combining this with it being an easy day trip from Hiroshima, means it’s painfully popular during the day! A couple of school groups didn’t help but there were loads of tourists too. And a couple of (wannabe) influencers (or maybe actual ones, who knows?).

The gate itself is quite impressive: at low tide you can walk out to it and at high tide it appears to “float” on the ocean.

There are deer wandering about here (as well as Nara) but you can’t feed them and aren’t supposed to touch them either (although that didn’t stop many tourists!). Not that the deer seem to mind – many just sleep as the hoards pass them by… (though surely they wake up with a sore neck from sleeping like that?)

As always, a short walk (or shorter run) away from the crowds, there’s a quiet forest trail leading to the start of the island’s cable car. (Many of the crowds opted to take the bus to the start of the cable car.)

Of course, M loves heights (NOT) and kids already wanted to go home for screen time so there was discussion about whether the cable car was worth doing at all. In the end, FOMO won and we did it but we all agreed after that it wasn’t worth it. It didn’t take you to the top of the hill (that’s another half hour walk) and, much to M’s joy, it’s actually two separate cable cars to get up there, not just one. His face when we realised there was a second one did make me laugh so maybe that was worth it? 🤔😜

And there’s encouraging signs like this to help you feel confident that you definitely will not die:

The view from the top was quite nice – but only M & Z got right to the very top. Luckily they took a picture:

So, if Miyajima appeals to you, then I’d recommend an overnight stay just so you can experience it without so many people.