Sumiyoshi Park

The oldest park in Osaka, opened in Meiji 6 (1873). It is busy all year round, with a cherry blossom festival under the trees in full bloom in spring, the Sumiyoshi Festival of the neighbouring Sumiyoshi Taisha shrine, a summer purification rite, in summer, and the first shrine visit of the year at New Year. The land was originally part of the shrine precinct and held the shrine's riding ground, and the Shiokake-michi that now runs east and west through the middle of the park was the main approach to Sumiyoshi Taisha. The Takadoro, a tall lantern standing where the park faces Route 26, was raised at the end of the Kamakura period as a votive light for Sumiyoshi Taisha and is held to be the oldest lighthouse in Japan; the present one was restored in Showa 49. The sea once came in as far as the western side of the park, and the scene in front of the shrine facing that sea was called Sumiyoshi moyo, the original of the white sand and green pines taken as the model of beautiful Japanese scenery, a noted view sung in many waka poems. At the east entrance of the park is a stone carved with the verse Basho composed when he attended the Takara no Ichi rite at Sumiyoshi Taisha on 13 September Genroku 7 (1694).

Translated from the Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City tourist listings (観光施設一覧, CC BY 4.0).