Hidden Gems Across Japan
1,610 spots
Dojoji
Dojoji is the oldest temple in Wakayama, founded in 701, and it is famous for a story. A woman called Kiyohime fell for…
Shirasaki Marine Park
A headland of white limestone laid down more than two hundred and fifty million years ago, dropping straight into deep b…
Dorokyo Gorge
Dorokyo is a gorge on the Kitayama river where it forms the boundary between Wakayama, Nara and Mie — thirty-odd kilomet…
Oishi Kogen
Oishi Kogen is a plateau at about 870 metres straddling Kimino and Aridagawa, and what grows on it is susuki — Japanese…
Kumano Hayatama Taisha
The third of the Kumano grand shrines, at the mouth of the Kumano river in Shingu, and the most compact — vermilion hall…
Kamikura Shrine
Kamikura is where, in the Kumano tradition, the gods first came down to earth — before Hayatama, before Hongu, before an…
Shionomisaki Lighthouse
The southernmost point of Honshu, on a thirty-metre cliff above the Pacific, with a white lighthouse first lit in 1873 a…
Hashigui-iwa
About forty pillars of rock stand in a line across the shallows at Kushimoto, running roughly 850 metres from the shore…
Tomogashima
Tomogashima is a group of uninhabited islands in the strait between Wakayama and Awaji, and from the 1890s the army fort…
Aragijima
The Arida river makes a tight loop around a spur of land at Shimizu, and the terraces cut into that spur have the shape…
Kawayu Onsen
At Kawayu the hot spring comes up through the gravel bed of the Oto river, which means that if you dig a hole in the riv…
Tsuboyu
Tsuboyu is a hut about the size of a garden shed over a rock pool in the streambed at Yunomine, and it is the only World…
Omi Champon
Omi champon has nothing to do with the Nagasaki dish beyond the name. There is no pork bone broth and no milk: the soup…
Kinomoto Jizoin
Kinomoto Jizoin is a temple to the eyes. Its Jizo has been venerated for sight for centuries, and outside the hall stand…
Lake Yogo
Lake Yogo is a small round lake, about 6.4 kilometres around, sitting in a bowl of hills north of Lake Biwa and separate…
Yakisaba Somen
Yakisaba somen was a gift, not a restaurant dish. In the farming villages around Nagahama a family whose daughter had ma…
Sagawa Art Museum
The Sagawa Art Museum sits on the eastern shore of Lake Biwa as two low pavilions with tiled roofs appearing to float on…
Illustration — not a photographFunazushi
Funazushi is what sushi was before it involved vinegar or raw fish. Nigorobuna, a carp found only in Lake Biwa, is caugh…
La Collina Omihachiman
Fujimori Terunobu designed the main building of this confectioner's flagship as a hill with grass growing out of its roo…
Okishima
Okishima is the only inhabited island in a freshwater lake anywhere in Japan. About 250 people live on a rock 1.5 kilome…
Azuchi Castle Ruins
Oda Nobunaga built Azuchi between 1576 and 1579 on a hill over Lake Biwa and it stood for three years. The keep was seve…
Kongorinji
Kongorinji is the middle of the three Kotosanzan temples strung along the foot of the Suzuka mountains, all founded in t…
Taga Taisha
Taga Taisha enshrines Izanagi and Izanami, the pair who in the Kojiki make the islands of Japan and most of the gods in…
Eigenji
Eigenji is the head temple of its own branch of Rinzai Zen, founded in 1361 in a bend of the Aichi river where the valle…
Estimated from distance to the nearest airport or shinkansen station. Confirm actual journey times before you travel.