You get them in research institutes, tucked away in small caves, perched atop spanking-new urban developments. Clamber up Mount Fuji and one is waiting there at the summit. Aside from desperately keen Shintoi aficionados, few people would complain that Japan suffers any dearth of shrines. While Shinto shrines can often be interesting, atmospheric spots, they tend not to be regarded as actual destinations in themselves.
Notable exceptions to this would be the grand shrine of Ise, Shinto's holiest spot, and Itsukushima Shrine near Hiroshima, which with its famed torii standing out in the bay is probably Japan's loveliest shrine. Another place that is definitely worth a long trek just for the shrine alone is Izumo Taisha. Located 40 km west of Matsue in Shimane Prefecture in western Honshu, the shrine of Izumo Taisha is one of the country's most venerated. It is also one of the oldest and, with a height of 24 meters, the tallest Shinto place of worship.
Grand though the structure is today, the present shrine is, in fact, nothing like the size it once was. On the main pine-flanked approach road leading to Izumo Taisha stands the excessively named Exhibit Hall for the Miniature of Ancient Izumo Grand Shrine, within which stands a one-tenth scale model of the shrine as it was between around the years 900 to 1270.