Chureito Pagoda

We visited the Chureito Pagoda in early February. Winter is the best season to see Mount Fuji. Thanks to the cold dry air there are hardly any clouds as you can see in the above picture. Is the best season to enjoy unobstructed views of Mount Fuji.

Spring is another excellent season to visit the pagoda as it is surrounded by cherry trees. There’s a chance that you might not have a clear view of the mountain but seeing the pagoda with the cherry blossom is a true treat as well. And if the weather is good you truly have a picture-postcard view!

PRO TIP: Visit the pagoda first thing in the morning. You then have a better chance of a good view of the mountain and you are also ahead of the day trippers who start arriving towards noon. When we arrived around 9:30 AM there were only a handful of tourists. By the time we left (somewhere around 10:30 AM it started getting busy)

The pagoda was built in 1963 and is part of the much older Arakura Fuji Sengen Shrine. While the Shrine is situated at the bottom of the hill, the pagoda is located further uphill. A staircase of 400 steps leads from the Shrine to the Pagoda. This means you should be willing to do something to take that quintessential picture of Japan.

The pagoda was built as a tribute to the Japanese soldiers who died for their country in the Sino-Japanese wars and the two World Wars. Its official name is the Fujiyoshida Cenotaph Monument.

Tickets

The Arakura Fuji Sengen Shrine and the Chureito Pagoda can be visited for free. There’s no entrance fee.

Getting there

Take the Fujikyu Railway to Shimoyoshida Station and follow the signs to the Shrine. It’s about a 10-minute walk and the road is very well signposted, you really can’t miss it.