Atami

Atami is fifty minutes from Tokyo by shinkansen, on a steep bay with hot springs at the shore, and it was the standard Japanese company-trip destination through the boom years - big concrete hotels up the hillside, banquet halls, nightlife. When that market collapsed in the 1990s the town emptied badly, hotels closed and it became a case study in resort decline. The recovery from around 2011 came from doing unglamorous things: cleaning and replanting the beachfront, converting shuttered arcades, supporting small businesses and marketing to young couples and day trippers rather than corporate groups, and visitor numbers have since risen. What is there now is a beach with imported sand, a rebuilt shopping arcade, public foot baths, the MOA art museum on the hillside with a Korin national treasure, an early-flowering plum garden, and fireworks fired over the bay on set dates throughout the year rather than only in summer.

History

Atami has been a hot spring resort since the 8th century, and in the Kamakura period Minamoto no Yoritomo and Hōjō Masako came here. In the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923, whose epicentre lay close by in Sagami Bay, a tsunami up to 11 metres high swept over the town (Wikipedia, Atami).

What you'll find

• A recovered resort - a decline from the 1990s reversed by small-scale rebuilding.
• Year-round fireworks - fired over the bay on set dates in most months.
• The MOA museum - a hillside art museum holding a Korin national treasure.
• Early plum - a garden flowering from January, ahead of most of Japan.

When to go

January to February for plum; check the fireworks calendar for any month. Two days.

Before you go

Large concrete hotels from the boom years still dominate the skyline. The beach sand is imported and the bay is a working harbour. Weekend day-tripper crowds from Tokyo are heavy. Some older arcades remain shuttered.

Nearby

Izu peninsula runs south; Hakone is west over the hills.

Key facts