After Yamazaki, here comes Akutagawa inn town, in Takatsuki city.
The city itself is known for a medieval Christian lord, Justo Ukon Takayama, who reigned this area and was eventually expelled from Japan to the Philippines by the order of lord Hideyoshi Toyotomi. Ukon was exiled because of his Christian faith, which Hideyoshi and Ieyasu Tokugawa restricted and banned.
Here is the route of Akutagawa inn town. The yellow arrow I drew is the route.
Apparently, there is an exhibition about Akutagawa inn town and Saigoku Kaido route at Takatsuki Shiroato museum, which is located in where Takatsuki castle used to be. It will be interesting to find out how big the inn town was, and the locations of east and west guards were.
According to the map of Akutagawa inn town guide map, the actual inn town begins at around the right curve from Kyoto side on the first picture. Soon we see the sign of “the street corner of Akutagawa Revenge”. To make a long story short, in early Edo time, there were two samurais from Iwami country(part of today’s Shimane prefecture), arguing about a boy of their country. One of them killed his father by mistake, and this boy determined to master swordsmanship, in order to revenge the guy for the sake of his father. This boy eventually succeeded in revenge here in this place when he was 14 years old. The guy who was revenges was carrying a letter that says, “I killed two persons already and it is natural that I get killed, and the person who revenge against me is not responsible for killing me”. Apparently this story of samurai code of conduct became famous along with the story of the revenge of 47 ronins. I didn’t know that.
At the curve, there is a mini shrine where used to be ichirizuka milestone, as seen on any old route.
There are bits of stuff to show what Akutagawa inn town used to be. One of them is Nishida liquor shop.(the old house at the center of the picture, next to an old house on the left)
Google map show that the old house on the right of this picture is a coffee shop.
For the most part, for those who expect to see series of old houses like Takayama, Kyoto and Kurashiki, this kind of places can be boring. But note that, according to my Google map and YouTube research, Saigoku Kaido route has more old houses than the section of Nihonbashi-Fuchu(Shizuoka city) in Tokaido. Plus, Takatsuki city offers a lot of other attractions including lord Ukon Takayama’s sites. I encourage my readers to check out Takatsuki official tourist guide website to explore.
There are other sites to indicate Akutagawa inn town. One of the most notable ones is the water gate on the west edge of the inn town. There is a river Akuta(Akutagawa means Akutagawa River), of which the bottom was higher than the inn town itself, and used to flood. This water gate was built to block the flooding water from the inn town. You see the stone structures on both sides of the road.
Lastly, this has probably little to do with Akutagawa inn town itself. But about 20 minutes walk from the water gate, there is an ancient tomb, built in 6th century, allegedly of the emperor Keitai. There is a museum nearby about the tomb. This is another spot to explore.
When it comes to Akutagawa inn town, as far as online research goes, there was not even a single website in English to mention. This is a huge hindrance for old route explorers to discover this area.
JR Takatsuki station is the closest train station for Akutagawa inn town. JR Takatsuki station itself seems to be the hub of sightseeing in Takatsuki. If you want to rather explore more about lord Ukon Takayama, Hankyu Takatsuki-shi station has better access to Takatsuki castle ruins and the museum.
References:
(Accessed in 4/7/2025. Japanese only)
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