5th Station: Totsuka

Travelers who left Edo in the early morning reached this station by evening and spent their first night there. In this scene Hiroshige shows a man dismounting from his horse in front of an open teahouse, where a female server stands by to receive him. Beyond this station, the highway is lined with pine trees. The planting of pine trees along the route was dictated by the shogunate, so they appear pictured in many of the prints.

Totsuka was one of the largest stations because two other major roads intersected here.