Come on the journey from Edo, modern day Tokyo, to Kyoto, as experienced by Utagawa Hiroshige in, when he travelled the Tokaido road to participate in 1832 an important procession in Kyoto.
There were 69 post stations along this other, parallel road over the mountains, Nakasendo or Kisokaido as it was also called, apart from the start and terminus, in all 70 prints, which are all here in the order from Edo to Kyoto, but one station has two prints, so in total 71 prints in the Nakasendo.
These were the most popular print series ever made in Japan. They were even more popular than Hokusais series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, which had been recently published and which had influenced Hiroshige tremendously.
It is possible to travel the same road today and some villages are still looking quite like they did back then. The postal stations were constructed between 1601 and 1624.
