Yamadera or Hiraizumi for a day trip

Hello everyone,

I would like to take a day trip to either Yamadera or Hiraizumi around Oct 26. Which one do you think it's a must see and worth going? I will have a JR east pass. We are 2 adults and love temples, nature, and historical thing.

I'm in Sendai for 2 days and then will stay at Matshushima. Prior to Sendai, I've already spent quite few days in different Onsen area. Therefore, only leave me the choices of Yamadera or Hiraizumi. We hope to spend half to full day for this day trip and then back to Sendai around 6-7pm in the evening. Please let me know what you think iand your preferences and how easy to take the train to go there.
Many thanks in advance!

Hmmm..
difficult.

I liked them both. If I had to choose one or the other, I would probably say Yamadera - though Hiraizumi is historically much more significant and the Konjikido is stunning. My reason for saying Yamadera is that it is more different than Hiraizumi.

Chusonji in Hiraizumi opens at 8 am. If you are catching Shinkansen it is less than an hour from Sendai. Yamadera also opens at 8am and is one hour. If you were up very early, it is conceivable you could go to both places in the day. If you are confining yourself to the temple precincts, both can comfortably be seen in half a day.

That said, trains are infrequent, and it would be imperative to know what time to be back at the station.

Here are some pictures of both.
http://ponkanchan.blogspot.com/search?q=hiraizumi

http://ponkanchan.blogspot.com/2010/03/yamadera.html

http://www.yamagatakanko.com/english/sightseeing/yamadera.html

I forgot to include this link - a very useful site for travelling in Yamagata.