Tomonoura

Tomonoura is a beautifully preserved Edo-period port on the Seto Inland Sea, tucked onto a small peninsula south of Fukuyama. For centuries it thrived as a 'tide-waiting port,' where ships paused for the currents to turn, and that prosperity left a townscape of weathered merchant houses, narrow lanes, temples, and a stone-built harbour crowned by the iconic joyato, a tall Edo-era lantern tower that still marks the waterfront. The town wears its history lightly: Sakamoto Ryoma and his crew famously came ashore here after the Iroha Maru sank offshore in 1867, and the hillside Taichoro hall in Fukuzenji temple frames one of the loveliest views in Japan across the islands. Tomonoura's dreamy, time-stopped atmosphere is said to have inspired Hayao Miyazaki, who stayed nearby while conceiving Studio Ghibli's 'Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea.' Visitors come to wander the lanes, sip the amber houmeishu herbal liqueur brewed here since the Edo period, eat sea bream fresh from the Inland Sea, and take a short boat across to the island of Sensuijima. It is an unhurried, atmospheric half-day from Fukuyama.