Tokushima

At the base of the 280m-high Mount Bizan (眉山), is the Awa Odori Kaikan (阿波踊り会館). The complex houses a good gift shop on the ground floor, a ropeway  on the fifth floor that goes to the top of Mount Bizan, a museum on the third floor, and the Awa Odori Hall where there are at least four live performances daily of the city’s famous dance, including one slightly more expensive evening performance from 8pm ; audience participation is encouraged at all performances, so don’t be surprised if you end up on stage.

Picturesque HIWASA (日和佐), 55km south of Tokushima, is worth pausing at for its intriguing temple, quaint harbour and pretty beach. Yakuō-ji (薬王寺), the 23rd temple on the Shikoku pilgrimage, is on the hillside as you pull into the train station; the temple’s base is surrounded by hotels and gift shops catering to the hordes of pilgrims who regularly pass through. Climbing the steps to the main temple, you can’t fail to notice lots of ¥1 coins on the ground: some pilgrims place a coin on each step for luck as they head up. At the top of the steps is the main temple area, whose buildings date from 815 AD and where there’s a striking statue of a goddess carrying a basket of fish and flanked by lotus blooms. Off to the right is a more recently built single-storey pagoda. There’s a good view of Hiwasa’s harbour from the platform, but the highlight here is to descend into the pagoda’s darkened basement, where for ¥100 you can fumble your way around a pitch-black circular corridor to a central gallery containing Brueghel-like painted depictions of all the tortures of hell. In a second gallery is a long scroll showing the steady decay of a beautiful, but dead, young woman.

About 1km south of the harbour, the reconstructed castle Hiwasa-jō (日和佐城) is only worth visiting for its impressive view of the town. The better option is to head directly to Ōhama beach, north of the harbour, where turtles lay their eggs between May and August. During this time, the beach is roped off and spectators must watch the action from a distance. For a closer look at the turtles, make your way to the Sea Turtle Museum at Umigame Hakubutsukan Karetta (うみがめ博物館カレッタ), beside the beach. The displays are mainly in Japanese, but are very visual, with step-by-step photos of turtles laying eggs; you can also see some turtles swimming in indoor and outdoor pools.

The popular surfing spot of KAIFU (海部), 26km south of Hiwasa, is where the JR train line ends and is replaced with the private Asa Kaigan railway. You’ll nearly always have to change trains here to continue toward the southern cape (simply cross over to the opposite platform). Even if you don’t, you’ll have to pay ¥270 extra to travel the remaining two stops – the first is SHISHIKUI (宍喰), Tokushima’s top surf beach, where there’s a good range of accommodation including the reasonable Kokuminshukusha Mitoko-sō (国民宿舎みとこ荘). The end of the line is KANNOURA (甲浦), a sleepy village with a pleasant stretch of gravelly sand framed with rocky outcrops.

From Awa Ikeda the road and railway enter the spectacular Ōboke Gorge (大歩危), cut through by the sparkling Yoshino-gawa. The vertiginous mountains here and in the adjacent Iya Valley can be coated in snow during the winter, while less than one hour south, the palms of Kōchi sway in the sunshine. This remoteness from the rest of the island made the gorge an ideal bolt-hole for the Taira clan after their defeat at Yashima in 1185. Here the warriors traded their swords for farm implements and built distinctive thatched-roof cottages on the mountainsides. Few of these remain in their original form, their thatched roofs now covered in rusty tin and their wooden walls in plastic sheeting, but one that does is Chiiori (ちいおり), a 300-year-old house in the village of Tsurui (釣井).  This delightfully rustic building is the base for The Chiiori Project (wwww.chiiori.org), which fosters community-based tourism in the Iya Valley and has established a small organic farm. Regular volunteer weekends and workshops on traditional crafts are hosted here, and it’s also possible to stay overnight (Fri–Mon), a communal experience where guests and staff cook, eat and wash up together, and everyone shares a dorm. The suggested rates are ¥7000 for the first night and ¥4000 per subsequent night; rates may be reduced if you’re involved in one of their volunteer projects.

Even more picturesque are the Oku Iya Kazura-bashi (奥祖谷かずら橋), a pair of vine bridges also known as the “Fufu-bashi” (husband and wife bridges), some 30km further into the Iya Valley from Nishi Iya and en route to Tsurugi-san (剣山) – at 1955m, Shikoku’s second-highest mountain. A four-hour round-trip climb starts at Minokoshi (見ノ越), from where there’s a ropeway part of the way up the mountain, if you want to save time and effort.

With thrilling rapids and spectacular rocky scenery, a boat trip down the Yoshino-gawa is the best way to view the Ōboke Gorge. Also check out the whitewater rafting trips on offer.