Best for: Samurai history, Fuji views, tea culture, coastal scenery, crafts, and island life
Route: Hamamatsu · Tōkaidō post towns · Shizuoka (with trips to Mount Fuji viewpoints) · Atami · Itō & the Jōgasaki coast · Izu Islands
Why do it? Shizuoka is proud of its samurai history, particularly its link to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shōgun of the Tokugawa period (1603–1868). Hamamatsu’s castle was his home for many years; now reconstructed, today it’s a museum set in a tree-filled park, a great first stop if you’re curious about samurai history. While in Hamamatsu, embrace the local spirit of yaramaika! (a dialect phrase meaning “let’s give it a go!”) by trying your hand at crafts like chūsen-zome dyeing, and visiting the museums and factories of locally founded companies Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha.
Shizuoka produces not only motorbikes and pianos, but also around 40 percent of Japan’s green tea, with many of the plantations located east of Hamamatsu on the Makinohara Plateau. Book a plantation tour, or even an overnight stay with a local producer, or stop off at Kakegawa Castle’s peaceful tearoom to try the local brews.
In the Tokugawa era, important samurai had to regularly visit the capital. Many of them took the Tōkaidō (Great East Road) to get there, as captured in ukiyo-e artist Hiroshige’s 1834 collection of prints, The 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō. You can get a taste of their arduous journeys on one of Shizuoka’s remaining sections. One leads from Okabe-juku (the 21st station/post town from Tōkyō) to Mariko-juku (station 20), via either the 1870-built red-brick Meiji Utsunoya Tunnel or the old route, the steep Utsunoya Pass. Stop off at Chōji-ya, an over-400-year-old thatched restaurant immortalised by Hiroshige, where you can try local dishes like tororo-jiru (grated yam soup) and Abekawa-mochi (sweet rice cakes coated in roasted soybean flour).
Continuing east, you’ll reach Shizuoka city, where you can visit the ruins of Sumpu Castle (Tokugawa Ieyasu’s retirement residence) and dine on warming Shizuoka oden (hotpot) in the narrow alleyway of Aoba-yokochō. There are two Mount Fuji viewpoints nearby, too. First is Nihondaira Yume Terrace, from where you can admire the sacred peak across Suruga Bay and take the ropeway to Kunōzan Tōshō-gū, the ornate shrine where Tokugawa Ieyasu was enshrined after his death in 1616. Second is Miho no Matsubara, a beach lined with 30,000 pine trees that gives one of the more unusual perspectives on Fuji-san, rising above the sweep of the beach.
Next, take the shinkansen to Atami, on the east coast of the Izu Peninsula. This charmingly retro hot-spring resort is a joy to stroll around, with covered shopping arcades, steep steps to the waterfront, and plumes of steam rising from grates down side streets. It’s also a good base for trips to Itō, where William Adams (an English navigator who was stranded in Japan in 1600) built Japan’s first Western-style ship, and the craggy Jōgasaki Coast, where there’s a rewarding 10km (6-mile) hiking trail.
You can catch a ferry from Atami out to Izu-Ōshima, and from there the rest of the nine Izu Islands – think hiking on volcanoes, dolphin-spotting, and lazy days on white-sand beaches. The islands are linked to Atami by boat, and to Tōkyō by boat and plane.
Read more: Izakaya hopping in Japan – and five dishes to try
AloJapan.com