No matter how warm and sunny the day, there's always a chill in Mandarado Yagura, a samurai graveyard in Kotsubo, right at the boundary between Kamakura and Zushi in Kanagawa Prefecture just south of Yokohama.
In this secreted locale little more than an hour by road or rail from the concrete and steel of Tokyo, lush vegetation obscures the many caves housing tombs, though their stone markers stubbornly materialize through the greenery. Here, history, nature and the unknown ripple through the wild flowers, stirring the grass and causing the heart to skip a beat or three.
So, the next time you're planning a trek through well-trod Kamakura, avoid the crowds and plot a course along the mountain path connecting the ancient capital to Miura — but take a sideways excursion to explore this rare attraction.
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