Shuzenji

The oldest hot spring town in Izu, and the legend is specific: Kobo Daishi came through in 807, saw a boy washing his sick father in the cold river, struck the rock with his staff and hot water came out. That spring, Tokko-no-yu, still sits on a rock in the middle of the Katsura river, roofed and fenced. You can no longer bathe in it but you can put your feet in a footbath beside it.

The town's other story is a killing. Minamoto no Yoriie, the second Kamakura shogun, was exiled to Shuzenji temple and murdered there in 1204, probably in the bath, on the orders of his own grandfather's family. A mask kept at the temple is said to be connected to him, and Okamoto Kido's 1911 play about it made the town a literary destination.

What you actually do here is walk and bathe. The Katsura river runs through the middle with red-painted bridges across it, and a bamboo path along the bank has a round bench in the centre where you lie back and look up at the stems. It takes ten minutes and it is the best short walk in Izu.

Most ryokan open their baths to day visitors for around 1,000 to 1,500 yen, and several have riverside rotenburo. Staying the night is better; the day-trippers leave by five.

Natsume Soseki nearly died here in 1910 of a stomach haemorrhage, an episode Japanese literary history calls the Shuzenji great illness. There is a stone marking it.

From Mishima, the Izuhakone line takes about 35 minutes to Shuzenji station, then a short bus ride to the town.