Ehime

Almost every south-facing slope along this coast is terraced and planted with citrus. The walls are stone, the ground is steep enough that growers run small monorails up between the rows to move fruit, and from the road the pattern of it reads as landscape rather than agriculture.

The practical consequence is a season you can eat your way through. Different varieties ripen from late autumn deep into spring, and the roadside stands and small local markets sell kinds that are grown in quantities too small ever to reach a supermarket in a big city — often for very little, often on an honesty box. If you are here in the colder half of the year, buy fruit at the side of the road at least once rather than in a station shop, and ask what has just come in; the answer changes every few weeks.

Two days, built around Matsuyama. The city has Dogo Onsen, one of the oldest hot springs in the country with a bathhouse that is a national treasure, and a hilltop castle reached by ropeway — both within a tram ride of each other, and that is a comfortable day and a half.

The second half goes east or south. East: the Shimanami Kaido cycling route, which crosses to Hiroshima over six islands and starts at Imabari, about forty minutes from Matsuyama. South: Uchiko and Ozu, two preserved merchant towns on the way toward Kochi, roughly an hour down the line.

Three days lets you do the bridge route properly as a full day's ride, which is the best thing in the prefecture and one of the best days out in Japan.

Matsuyama Airport is the quickest way in, about an hour and a half from Haneda. By rail, the Shiokaze limited express runs from Okayama to Matsuyama in about two and a half hours after the Sanyo Shinkansen; there are also ferries from Hiroshima, with the fast boat taking a little over an hour. In the city, trams run to the castle and to Dogo, including a replica steam tram. The Shimanami Kaido starts at Imabari with bicycle rental and one-way returns. The Uwakai coast in the southwest is slow by train and much easier by car, as are the inland gorges at Omogokei.

The cycling route that hops between islands to the mainland has two ends, and beginning from this one is the less common choice. It is worth knowing that you do not have to commit to the whole thing: bicycles can be hired at the start and left at the far end, buses run the same corridor, and several of the islands have their own small loops if you would rather ride a part of it and come back.

The riding itself is gentle. The bridges are the climbs — each has a spiral approach ramp to lift you to deck height — and between them the roads are flat and coastal. What it is not is shaded, and the bridge decks are exposed to wind off the sea, so choose a mild month and start early. Allow far longer than the distance suggests, because stopping is most of the pleasure.

Nothing rules out a season here; the Inland Sea coast is mild and dry. The bathhouse at Dogo has undergone extended restoration work in recent years, with parts of the building closed at various times, so check what is actually open before building a trip around it — that is the specific thing to verify in this prefecture rather than a month to avoid.

Summer is hot for the cycling route, which is largely unshaded on the bridges; spring and autumn are much better for it. The southern coast catches typhoons in late summer.

Mikan and its relatives — iyokan, dekopon, setoka — are the prefecture's crop, and the winter roadside stands sell varieties that never reach Tokyo supermarkets. Taimeshi comes in two versions: in Matsuyama the sea bream is cooked whole with the rice, while on the Uwajima coast it is served raw over rice with a soy and egg sauce. Jakoten is small fish ground whole, bones included, and fried into flat cakes, eaten as a snack in Uwajima. Botchan dango, three-coloured skewered dumplings, is a Dogo Onsen fixture named after the novel.

The Inland Sea side is mild and dry — January highs near 10°C, little snow — while the southern mountains are wetter and cooler. Citrus season runs from November through the winter, with different varieties ripening into spring, and roadside stands appear along the coast. Summer is hot above 32°C but the coast gets a breeze. The Shimanami Kaido is best cycled in May or October, when the humidity and the wind are both manageable. Dogo Onsen is pleasant year-round and less crowded on weekday mornings. Matsuyama Castle's cherry blossoms open in late March.

Trains and a bicycle. Matsuyama has a tram network including a small steam-styled tourist train, the main line runs east to Imabari and south to Uchiko and Ozu, and the cycling route is exactly that — bicycles rent at Imabari and can be returned in Onomichi on the Hiroshima side.

A car helps for the southern coast toward Uwajima and the mountainous interior, both of which are thinly served. But the three things most people come for — the bathhouse, the castle and the bridges — need no car at all, and the bridges are actively better without one.

A first visit is Matsuyama: the bathhouse in the evening, the castle in the morning, and the tram between them. Dogo is a working public bath with a three-storey wooden bathhouse over it, a tatami rest room upstairs and a tea service afterwards, and it has been operating in some form for well over a thousand years. The castle is one of the surviving originals.

A second visit is the bicycle. The Shimanami Kaido runs about seventy kilometres from Imabari across six islands to Onomichi, on a dedicated cycle lane the whole way, past citrus groves and shipyards and over some genuinely spectacular bridges. It can be done in a long day or split over two with a night on an island, and it is the single best reason to come back to this part of Japan. Electric bicycles are available if seventy kilometres sounds like more than you want, and the route is flat apart from the bridge approaches.