Tokushima's stop on the Shikoku Henro, the 1,200-km pilgrimage circuit of 88 temples associated with the monk Kukai. Ido-ji is the seventeenth temple on the route and sits in a residential neighbourhood at the western edge of the city, its name meaning "well temple" after the spring Kukai is said to have struck open with his staff in 815.
Even non-pilgrims will recognise the white-clad walkers with conical sedge hats who pause here on their counter-clockwise journey around the island. The grounds are small but the main hall and pagoda are quietly handsome.