To visit the Kii Mountain WHS, Yoshino is the closest option from Nara. I visited Yoshino in September 2019 and spent a day and a half there. Yoshino is the starting point of the Ōmine Okugakemichi pilgrimage route that ends at the Kumano Hongū Taisha Shrine. I actually planned to hike the first part of the trail up to the Ōminesan-ji Temple and wanted to stay the night there. That would have been a hike of 16 km, from 500 m sea level over two peaks up to 1700 m, exhausting but doable in one day. However, I was a week too late, the temple is only open in the warm months and was already closed at the end of September. So, I did a shorter hike to Shisuniwa peak, about halfway, and stayed in Yoshino.

Yoshino, or more precisely the mountain region Yoshino-yama, is an important centre of Shugendō, a syncretistic belief, whose practitioners seek spiritual power through ascetic practices in the sacred mountains. Asceticism and spirutuality are certainly not the first associations that arise when you step out of the cable car at the mountain station. The street through the village is lined with restaurants and shops. However, in late September, only about a third of them were open (and those that were open closed very early in the evening), but it is obvious that Yoshino is well prepared for the tourist rush in the peak seasons, such as the cherry blossom season.

There are a number of temples and shrines to visit, four are listed in the nomination file. The most important is probably the Kimpunsen-ji, a kind of gateway to the sacred mountain region. The main hall is an impressive wooden structure, not much smaller than Todai-ji in Nara. The temple is well preserved, but does not look perfectly restored as comparable temples in Kyoto or Nara. It is clearly visible that the massive pillars are several hundred years old.
A bit further up the street, a path branches off to the Yoshimizu Shrine, a popular place for cherry blossoms viewing. After walking two kilometers on the main street, you reach the Mikumari-jinja at the end of the village. The buildings of the shrine are grouped around a narrow courtyard, it is a calm and charming place. Here you begin to feel that you are in the mountains. After another two kilometers you reach the small Kimpu-jinja shrine. Then the trail runs through an old forest up to the Shisuniwa peak. I did not meet any other hikers in this last section, so I could feel a bit the "lonesome pilgrim mood".

I was surprised to see so few visitors, even though the sunny and warm weather was perfect for hiking. In the evening, Yoshino was almost deserted.  However, the peak seasons in Yoshino-yama are the cherry blossom season in April and the colourful autumn foliage in October. Nevertheless, I enjoyed my short pilgrimage. I would like to come back for a longer hike with one or more temple stays, either in Yoshino or any of the other inscribed areas of the Kii Mountains.