Advice on Kamakura hiking day


Hello everyone,

I am planning my trip to Japan for this november and wanted to do a day trip from Tokyo to Kamakura. My partner an I both really like hiking and I saw there is a few trails in Kamakura, so I came up with this plan. The distances seem very reasonable, but I'm not sure how much time I should count for visiting the shrines and temples on the way, so I wanted some opinions.

  • Start at Hase station

  • Hasedera Temple : seems really pretty, beautiful gardens and nice view on Kamakura

  • Kotoku-in : stop to see the great Bouddha

  • Start the Daibutsu trail (~4km 1h30)
    On the way, stop at Sasuke Inari-jinja (not sure if it is accessible from the trail, I read on a post here that there used to be a path but it no longer exists, if it is too long to go we will skip it), Zeniarai Benten and Kuzuharaoka Jinja. All are little shrines that seems like short stops.

  • End of Daibutsu trail, next to Jochi-ji, we won't visit this one

  • Kencho-ji, a pretty big temple, also the start of the Ten-en trail, from here two choices :
    -Short hike to Kakuon-ji (2km, less than 1h)
    -Long to zuisen ji (4,5km 2h)
    not sure we would visit the temples as they close around 4pm and it might be too late

  • Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu, with both choices (short and long hike) there is about 2km to go back to this shrine. Closes at 9pm in november so not a problem.

In total the short option is 11km and the long 13.5km. Both options seem really do-able (The long one is even recommanded on Kamakura's tourist website : https://www.city.kamakura.kanagawa.jp/visitkamakura/en/routes/hiking1.html ) but I'm wondering if this won't be too much temples and shrines on one day… Maybe it is better to skip some parts ? I'd love to hear opinions about the Ten-en trail if someone has done it.

Here is the link to see the exact route : https://mapy.cz/s/fudusenupo

Thank you !

by Hymaginaire

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