Satsuma Peninsula

The southwestern arm of Kagoshima, with a volcano at the tip and a lot of history along the way.

Kaimondake, 924 metres and almost perfectly conical, stands alone at the southern end and is called Satsuma Fuji for obvious reasons. It takes about five hours up and down on a spiral path, and it is steeper than the shape suggests.

Ibusuki, on the eastern shore, does something no other town does: geothermal water heats the black volcanic sand on the beach, and you are buried up to the neck in it for ten or fifteen minutes wearing a cotton yukata. The weight of the sand is the strange part. It is a proper treatment rather than a novelty, and a shower and an ordinary bath follow.

Chiran inland keeps a preserved street of samurai residences with seven gardens, all still lived in and all open. In the same town is the Chiran Peace Museum, on the site of the airfield from which 1,036 pilots flew to their deaths in 1945. The museum holds their last letters home, most of them written by teenagers. It is not a comfortable hour and it is the most important thing on the peninsula.

Also here: Lake Ikeda, a caldera lake with its own resident monster legend, Nagasakibana cape looking south towards the open sea, and Chiran tea, which competes with Uji at a fraction of the price.

A car is close to essential. The Ibusuki no Tamatebako sightseeing train from Kagoshima-Chuo covers the coast in about fifty minutes and is worth taking one way.