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Aizu Sazaedo

— Double-helix wooden hall on Iimoriyama

historyOff the trail — and worth it

A hexagonal wooden hall on the slope of Iimoriyama, built so that the ramp up and the ramp down are separate spirals. Walk it once and you have circled the whole building without retracing a single step.

FromKoriyama Station
~1 hr 20 minJR rapid, then the town loop bus
Get off atAizu-Wakamatsu Station (JR Ban'etsu West Line)
From there
Aizu Sazaedo

Directions ↗

The sweet spot

This is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property on the hill that most Aizu itineraries already include, so it is not an unknown place. What is uncommon is the mechanism rather than the setting. A circuit of the ramp takes only a few minutes, so the flow of people rarely backs up, and the hall is at its calmest on winter weekday mornings soon after it opens.

Where it is

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What to look for — in walking order

Sazaedo interiorAizuwakamatsu City / CC BY 4.0

The Iimoriyama approacha flight of stone steps up the hillside, with a paid slope conveyor running alongside
Itsukushima Shrinea small shrine below the hall, on the same wooded slope
The hexagonal exteriorbare weathered timber stacked under a deeply curved entrance porch
The double-helix rampa sloping walkway that climbs one way and descends the other, never crossing itself
Graves of the nineteen Byakkotaithe burial place of the boy soldiers of the Boshin War, higher on the same hillside

How to actually get there

Koriyama Station → Aizu-Wakamatsu Station (JR Ban'etsu West Line rapid, about 1 hr 5 min).
Aizu-Wakamatsu Station → Iimoriyama-shita (machinaka loop bus, roughly every 30 min).
Iimoriyama-shita → up the stone steps or the slope conveyor to Sazaedo.
Walk the ramp one full circuit, then carry on up to the Byakkotai graves.

JR from Koriyama, then the loop bus: Koriyama Station →(JR Ban'etsu West Line rapid, about 1 hr 5 min)→ Aizu-Wakamatsu Station. From the station square take the machinaka loop bus and get off at Iimoriyama-shita; the Akabe service runs the short way round to the hill. Loop buses leave roughly every half hour, so the connection rarely costs much waiting.
Back the same way from Iimoriyama-shita: Take the loop bus down to Aizu-Wakamatsu Station and the Ban'etsu West Line back to Koriyama. The loop buses finish in the late afternoon and early evening, well before the trains do, so check the last departure at the stop before you go up the hill. Otherwise it is a walk of about two kilometres back to the station.

Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

Sazaedo is a wooden building of three tiers on a hexagonal plan, 16.5 metres tall, set on the slope of Iimoriyama. Its formal name is Entsu Sansodo. There is no staircase inside. One ramp winds clockwise to the top and a second winds down the other way, and the two never cross at any point. Visitors go in at one door and come out at another. Very few wooden buildings anywhere were made this way, which is why the hall is usually described as a double helix.

How to enjoy it

A circuit of the ramp takes only a few minutes, so treat the whole hill as one visit: the approach, the hall, then the graves above it. Opening hours shift with the season — open until sunset from spring through autumn, closing in the mid-afternoon in winter — so arriving in the morning works in either half of the year. After snow, the bare timber reads at its strongest against the white.

Background & history

The hall was built in 1796 by Ikudo, then head priest of Shosoji, the temple that once stood on this slope. Images of the thirty-three Kannon of the Saigoku pilgrimage were set along the ramp, so that one circuit of the building answered for the whole pilgrimage route. The images were moved elsewhere after the Meiji government forced the separation of Buddhism and Shinto, and framed panels were hung in their place. The building itself survived, and is registered as an Important Cultural Property under the name Kyu-Shosoji Sansodo.

Before you go

Cash: Admission to the hall is charged at the door, with separate rates for adults, high-school students and younger children. The loop bus takes cash for a single ride and also sells a one-day pass covering the whole circuit.
Good to know: Opening hours change with the season: from spring to late autumn the hall stays open until sunset, while in winter it opens at nine and closes before evening. The approach is open hillside, and in winter the stone steps hold snow and ice.
Another way: From Tokyo the usual route is the Tohoku Shinkansen to Koriyama, about 1 hr 22 min, then the Ban'etsu West Line. From the Niigata side the same line runs the other way into Aizu-Wakamatsu.
After you get off: From the Iimoriyama-shita stop, cross to the foot of the hill and go up either the stone steps or the slope conveyor beside them. The hall stands part way up, below the graves at the top.