Fushimi Inari, Kyoto · Travel Poster

Each poster comes with a letter home. Ella writes about the place and its hidden history, and the details that never makes it into the guidebooks.

Founded in 711, before Kyoto was even the capital, and burned down entirely in a civil war in 1468, rebuilt only through donations gathered from across the country. The ten thousand vermilion gates lining the mountain path today are the same idea in miniature. Each one is a private donation, and the tradition took off during the Edo period on the back of a pun, the Japanese word for passing through sounds like the word for a wish coming true. Every gate is essentially somebody's hope, made solid enough to walk beneath.

This poster is an original illustration in watercolour and ink, painted exclusively for the Ella's Adventures travel poster series.

No frame included.