Akasaka

A shallow river flows in the foreground, with red and white rocks emerging here and there. Across it is a wooden bridge, one end resting on a stone wall, and a traveler in a straw hat crosses it. On the far bank stand rows of leafless trees, and thatched houses and a teahouse peek out behind them.

The arc of the bridge and the gray of the stone wall cut across the middle of the picture, dividing the sky above from the river below. The tree branches are drawn in thin reddish-brown lines, suggesting the season between winter and early spring. There are few figures, conveying the calm atmosphere of the edge of the post town.

Akasaka-juku was a post town in Fuwa District, Mino Province, and the nearby Kuise River had a river port that bustled with boat traffic. Some hold that the river shown is the Kuise River. Limestone is quarried from Mount Kinsei to the north of the town, and lime making flourished there from the Edo period.

This is a design by Hiroshige. The Tokaido also has a post town of the same name, Akasaka in Mikawa, which Hiroshige drew in his Hoeido edition of the Tokaido. Its picture of the inside of an inn is entirely different in feeling, and comparing the two shows well how the two series differ.