Matsuo Bashō · 1694 · overland

Matsuo Bashō's 1694 poetic travelogue. In 1689 the haiku master sold his hut outside Edo and set out on foot for the remote northern provinces, a 1,500-mile, 156-day pilgrimage through Tohoku - Nikkō, the barrier of Shirakawa, the pine islands of Matsushima, the ruins of Hiraizumi - then west over the mountains and down the Sea of Japan coast to end at Ōgaki, gathering haiku along the way.

1. 1
   Edo

   Bashō sells his riverside hut in Fukagawa and sets out north on foot with his disciple Sora, composing a farewell verse as the spring passes and the road's guardian spirits beckon.

2. 2
   Nikkō

   The great mountain shrine visited early on the road north, where Bashō pauses among the cedars and the sacred waterfalls of the sanctuary.

3. 3
   Matsushima

   The bay of pine-clad islands Bashō longed to see above all - so beautiful, he writes, that he could not compose a worthy haiku and simply sat in wonder.

4. 4
   Hiraizumi

   The grass-grown ruins of the Fujiwara clan's golden capital, where Bashō weeps over the vanished glory of warriors and writes his most famous lines on the transience of ambition.

5. 5
   Kanazawa

   Down the Sea of Japan coast after crossing the northern mountains, a castle town where Bashō meets fellow poets before the last stretch of the long road south.

6. 6
   Ōgaki

   Journey's end after five months and 1,500 miles, where Bashō's pupils gather to greet him - though the restless poet soon sets off again toward the Ise shrines.