Itoshima

Itoshima is the peninsula west of Fukuoka, close enough that the city treats it as a beach afternoon and far enough that it still has farms, and the coast road along its northern shore is what to follow. Sakurai Futamigaura has a white torii standing in the shallows with the wedded rocks - two stones joined by a rope - beyond it, and because the shore faces north-west the sun sets between them around the summer solstice. Along the same road are cafes in converted warehouses, a scatter of pottery and glass studios, oyster shacks that open in winter, and Keya no Oto, a basalt sea cliff with columnar jointing and a cave, reached by boat. It is a driving day - the sights are spread over twenty kilometres of coast and buses are sparse. Weekends bring a great deal of Fukuoka out here.

History

Many Jōmon sites have been found here, and human remains of the period lie in the stone burial mounds of the Shimmachi group. In the Yayoi period the peninsula is believed to have been the country of Itokoku, which bordered Nakoku on the Fukuoka plain, at a time when much of the new technology reaching Japan arrived through northern Kyushu. In the Edo period the area belonged to Fukuoka Domain; the town of Maebaru, a city from 1992, absorbed the towns of Shima and Nijō on 16 April 2009 and took the name Itoshima (Wikipedia, Itoshima).

The landscape

• The white torii - standing in the shallows at Sakurai Futamigaura.
• The wedded rocks - two stones joined by rope, with the sun setting between them in summer.
• Studio and cafe coast - pottery, glass and converted-warehouse cafes along the road.
• Keya no Oto - a columnar basalt sea cliff and cave, reached by boat.

When to go

April to October; winter for the oyster shacks. A day, with a car.

Good to know

Public transport is inadequate for the coast road - hire a car or bicycle. Weekend traffic and parking near the torii are difficult. The sunset alignment between the rocks happens only near midsummer. Boats to Keya are cancelled in swell.

Nearby

Fukuoka is east; Karatsu and its castle are west into Saga.