The most striking feature of Wakamiya Oji is the dankazura, a raised pathway flanked by cherry trees that runs between the second and third torii gates approaching the shrine. It was designed with a deliberate optical trick: the dankazura grows gradually wider as it approaches the sea, narrowing toward Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, so that when viewed from the shrine looking south, the avenue appears much longer than its actual length. The effect is subtle enough that most visitors never notice, yet unmistakable once pointed out. Three Shinto gates -- Ichi no Torii, Ni no Torii, and San no Torii -- mark the stages of approach, each one drawing the visitor deeper into sacred space. The portion of the dankazura beyond the second torii was removed during the Meiji period, but the surviving stretch remains one of Kamakura's most photographed sights, especially during cherry blossom season when the trees arch overhead in pale pink tunnels.

Between the first and second torii lies Geba Yotsukado, a crossroads whose name translates simply as 'Dismount Horse.' Samurai approaching Tsurugaoka Hachimangu were required to leave their horses at each of three bridges along Wakamiya Oji -- a sign of deference to the god Hachiman. The Sansuke River once flowed openly through this crossing before being covered in the 1960s to ease automobile traffic. Old stories describe Geba as frequent battleground. On September 12, 1271, the Buddhist monk Nichiren, arrested in his hut and on his way to execution at Tatsunokuchi, passed through Geba and reportedly turned toward the shrine to shout: 'Hachiman Bosatsu, if you are a kami, give me a sign for the sake of Buddhism!' Beyond Geba, the avenue's character changed entirely. The Azuma Kagami, the official Kamakura chronicle, records that past this point, the stately ceremonial road gave way to the main street of a bustling pleasure quarter.

The great stone torii at the southern end of Wakamiya Oji -- Ichi no Torii -- has one of the more turbulent biographies of any Shinto gate. Minamoto no Yoritomo began its construction in December 1180, and his wife Hojo Masako completed it in 1182 alongside the dankazura. The shogunate rebuilt it multiple times over the centuries. In 1668, Tokugawa Ietsuna used Mikage stone transported from the island of Inushima near Bizen to reconstruct all three torii on the avenue. The gate was declared a National Treasure in 1904. Then the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 shattered everything except the lower portions of its two pillars. Reconstruction began in 1936, with builders careful to source replacement stone from the same quarry on Inushima and reuse as much original material as possible. Even further south, the remains of a still-older gate -- the Hama no Otorii, first erected in 1180 -- were discovered during an archaeological survey in 1990, its pillar 160 centimeters thick, built from a hinoki cypress core surrounded by eight keyaki wood pieces.

A few meters past Ichi no Torii, almost invisible amid the modern streetscape, sits the grave of Hatakeyama Shigeyasu -- or at least a monument attributed to him. Shigeyasu was the eldest son of the warrior Hatakeyama Shigetada. A personal quarrel with Hiraga Tomomasa, the son-in-law of the powerful Hojo Tokimasa, spiraled into a political death sentence. On June 22, 1205, soldiers surrounded Shigeyasu's residence at this very spot and killed him. His father Shigetada was lured to his own death the following day. The grave's stone hokyointo monument and its accompanying black stele, erected in 1922, sit on the eastern sidewalk where commuters pass without a glance. Local tradition holds that because Shigeyasu suffered from asthma and was mid-attack when he fell, the monument has the power to cure colds and coughs. Passersby still stop to pray for relief from respiratory ailments, carrying eight centuries of grief and folk medicine on the same stretch of pavement.

Wakamiya Oji terminates at Yuigahama, the beach where the Namerigawa River meets Sagami Bay. During the Kamakura period, the beach was considered sacred to the Minamoto clan. Before undertaking pilgrimages to the shrines of Izu and Hakone, the shogun would descend the full length of Wakamiya Oji to purify his body in these waters. The road itself was reserved for such ceremonial journeys and for the formal entrance of important dignitaries -- including, on one famous occasion, the defeated Taira no Munemori, who entered Kamakura as a prisoner through its most sacred avenue after the decisive Minamoto victory at the Battle of Dan-no-ura. A thousand years ago the shoreline sat much farther inland, and the sea likely lapped close to the great southern gate. Today the beach is a popular surfing spot, and the once-forbidden road above it carries buses and taxis. The sacred has become civic, the ceremonial has become commercial, but the straight line from shrine to sea remains unbroken.