Itinerary of Michael G.｜Autumn 2025

September 26, 2026October 7, 2026

Guests and their private driver at a mountain viewpoint overlooking forested ridges in Shikoku

Overview

Customer’s name: Michael G.
Number of guests: 2
Travel dates: September 4-11, 2025
Areas visited: Ehime, Kagawa, Kochi, Tokushima

Itinerary

An eight-day private tour that crossed all four prefectures of Shikoku, entering from Hiroshima along the Shimanami Kaido and ending at Tokushima. Oyamazumi Shrine, Kotohira-gu, Ritsurin Garden, the Sunday Market in Kochi, Oboke Gorge and the vine bridges of Iya were linked together by private car, with hands-on experiences — a tea ceremony, soba making and Awa indigo dyeing — along the way. The theme of the trip was its accommodation: a seaside inn, a hot-spring ryokan with a private open-air bath, a hillside auberge and a restored mountain hamlet, one distinctive stay each night.

Day 1｜September 4

Our guests set out from their hotel in Hiroshima by private car and crossed to Shikoku along the Shimanami Kaido. On the way we stopped at Senkoji Park in Onomichi, where the hillside opens onto a view of the town, the channel and the first of the bridges. Continuing over the water to Omishima, they visited Oyamazumi Shrine and its treasure hall, which holds one of Japan’s foremost collections of historic arms and armour, alongside the maritime museum next door. The day closed at the Kirosan Observatory on Oshima, looking down on the Kurushima Strait and its tidal whirlpools. The night was spent at Umiyado Sennenmatsu, facing the sea.

Day 2｜September 5

Crossing the Kurushima Kaikyo Bridge, we left Ehime for Kagawa and the temple town of Kotohira. Our guests visited Kinryo no Sato, a working sake brewery whose old warehouses now house a museum of Sanuki brewing, and Kanamaruza, built in 1835 and the oldest surviving kabuki playhouse in Japan — the stage machinery beneath the floor is still worked by hand. They then climbed the stone steps to Kotohira-gu, long a destination of pilgrimage for seafarers. The night was spent at Kotohira Kadan in Konpira Onsen, in a Japanese-Western room with its own open-air bath.

Day 3｜September 6

We drove to Yashima and visited Yashimaji, the 84th temple of the Shikoku pilgrimage, standing on a flat-topped plateau above the Seto Inland Sea. In Ritsurin Garden our guests were served tea in one of the garden’s teahouses, with the ponds, pines and Mount Shiun borrowed as a backdrop — a scene composed over more than a century of work by the feudal lords of Takamatsu. The afternoon was given to the crafts of Kagawa, among them the round Marugame uchiwa fan, of which the town still makes the great majority of those produced in Japan. A second night at Kotohira Kadan.

Day 4｜September 7

A Sunday in Kochi, timed for the Sunday Market — a street market held on the approach to Kochi Castle for more than three hundred years, where growers sell vegetables, citrus and preserved food from stalls that run for a kilometre. Our guests then went out to Katsurahama, the beach associated with Sakamoto Ryoma, before visiting Chikurinji, the 31st temple of the pilgrimage, and its garden, and the Makino Botanical Garden on the same hill. Those who wished also climbed to the keep of Kochi Castle, one of only twelve original keeps still standing in Japan. The night was spent at Auberge Tosayama, in a villa in the hills outside the city.

Day 5｜September 8

Leaving Kochi for the interior, our guests boarded a sightseeing boat through Oboke Gorge, where the Yoshino River has cut a channel through rock folded and lifted by the movement of the earth, the strata standing almost vertical along the water. Further up the valley they crossed the Iya Kazurabashi, a bridge woven from mountain vine and rebuilt every three years in the same way it always has been. The road continued deeper still, to Oku-Iya, and the night was spent at Togenkyo-Iya, a hamlet of old farmhouses on a steep slope, restored and run as an inn.

Day 6｜September 9

A full day in Oku-Iya in the company of a local guide. Our guests walked through Ochiai, a settlement laid out on a mountainside with some 390 metres of elevation between its lowest and highest houses, still farmed in terraces and designated an Important Preservation District. They then tried their hand at making Iya soba, the coarse, short-cut buckwheat noodle of these mountains, and ate what they had made for lunch. In the afternoon they visited the former Kita residence, the house of a samurai family of the Iya valley. A second night at Togenkyo-Iya.

Day 7｜September 10

Coming down from the mountains to Wakimachi in Mima City, our guests dyed cloth with Awa indigo at a local workshop, working the fabric in vats of fermented dye. They then walked the udatsu townscape, a street of merchant houses whose raised firebreak walls were built as much to display wealth as to stop flames — wealth that came from the indigo trade itself. Continuing to Naruto, they took a boat out to the strait to see its whirlpools, which run strongest on the spring tides. The night was spent at Hotel Ridge.

Unique Accommodation of Shikoku

Review

We are still decompressing from an absolutely wonderful two weeks in Japan. We were delighted with all aspects of our tour – the food and lodgings were all truly first-rate. Mr. Sekimoto provided services far above normal standards – he was a super-driver, a translator, a tour guide and weather-forecaster (he made on-the-spot changes in day-trip details to navigate us around the typhoon that hit Shikoku, swapping some later tour visits with earlier visits, to ensure the best experience for us – it seemed to us that we always had good weather wherever we went). He took very good care of his two 80-year old visitors.

In the Iya Valley we had Shiro as our local guide for the two days. He gave us an excellent understanding of the local culture and the natural beauty, plus shared his work in bringing back to life one of the small villages where he was born that has had a demographic collapse. A great spirit offering true insight!

Plus it was brilliant to have the final night of the trip at the Hotel Ridge – located in fabulous grounds, with extraordinary food offered (dinner was a 3 hours affair, and breakfast 1-1/2 hours, with all the dishes served and described to us in detail by the Manager himself). What a finish!

I will be providing a Google review with an expansion of my above comments.

Thank you and best regards!

Itinerary of Michael G.｜Autumn 2025

Itinerary

Day 1｜September 4

Review

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