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Kimiidera, head temple of the Kuze Kannon school and the second pilgrimage station of the Saigoku Kannon route, was founded in 770 by the monk Iko. Famed for Japan's earliest-blooming cherry trees, its 12-meter Eleven-Faced Thousand-Armed Kannon is among the country's largest standing wooden statues. The temple's name derives from three sacred springs in its precinct.

Kimiidera traces its origins to 770 CE, when the monk Iko, returning from Tang-dynasty China, is said to have established a hall on the slopes of Mount Nagusan in present-day Wakayama City. The temple's name is derived from three sacred springs—Seizosui, Yoryusui, and Kissosui—that well up within th…