Sanuki Udon & Konpira: A Noodle Pilgrimage to the Mountain Shrine — 2 Days

A paddy-side self-serve shop in rural Ayagawa, founded in 1941 and credited as the birthplace of kamatama udon — hot just-boiled noodles tossed straight with a raw egg and a splash of dashi-soy until they turn glossy and rich, like a Sanuki carbonara. You queue along an outdoor counter, take your bowl, add tempura from the rack, and eat at tables in a garden behind the shop. It is the single most famous udon shop in the prefecture and the right place to understand why Kagawa people drive into the hills for a four-hundred-yen breakfast.

Open roughly 09:00-13:30, closed Sundays and Wednesdays; a kamatama bowl runs a few hundred yen (approx., 2026). In Ayagawa, best reached by car or taxi — it is genuinely rural. Go before 12:00; it sells out and queues build. Cash only.

The great shrine of Kotohira, sacred to seafarers across Japan, set up the wooded flank of Mount Zozu and reached by a long stone stairway — 785 steps to the main shrine, 1,368 to the inner shrine for the determined. The climb passes a souvenir-lined approach, the bronze-roofed Asahi-no-Yashiro, and opens at the main hall to a wide view over the Sanuki plain to the Inland Sea. Palanquin-bearers once carried pilgrims up; today people of all ages make the ascent slowly, and the sense of arrival at the top is the whole point.

Free, the path open through the day (shrine offices and stamp desk close around 17:00); allow 2-3 hours round-trip to the main shrine at a steady pace, more for the inner shrine. Bamboo walking sticks are lent near the foot. Central Kotohira, a short walk from JR/Kotoden Kotohira stations.

Japan's oldest surviving kabuki playhouse, built in 1835 on the slope below Konpira-san and lovingly preserved with its original machinery intact — the revolving stage and trapdoors worked by hand from the cellar, the masu box seats on the floor, the 'flower path' running through the audience, and an upper gallery that once held musicians. When no performance is on you can tour the building freely, climb down into the understage to see the human-powered revolve, and stand on the boards yourself. Each April it comes alive for a celebrated kabuki run.

Open about 09:00-17:00 for self-guided tours, admission around ¥500 (approx., 2026); closed to tours during the April kabuki run, which is a separate ticketed event that sells out — confirm dates if visiting in spring. A short walk from the Konpira-san approach.

The brewery museum of Nishino Kinryo, which has made sake at the foot of Konpira-san since 1789 and still brews the shrine's ceremonial offering wine. White-walled storehouses around an old camphor tree hold the original cedar vats, tools and a recreation of an Edo-period brewing floor, and the shop pours tastings of the current Kinryo range — dry Sanuki sake meant to sit beside the local food. Free, quiet and a nice change of pace after the noodles and the steps, a few minutes off the main approach.

Open about 09:00-16:30 weekdays / 09:00-17:30 weekends, free admission, open daily (approx., 2026). A few minutes' walk from the Konpira approach near JR Kotohira. Tastings and bottles for sale; go before the weekday early close.

A historic inn on the Konpira hillside with a lineage going back to 1627, the most characterful of the hot-spring lodgings in Kotohira: a hilltop of gardens and old wooden buildings, open-air baths fed by the Konpira onsen, and views down over the town and across the plain. Dinner is a Sanuki kaiseki built on Inland Sea fish and local vegetables. Staying on the mountain, within walking distance of the shrine steps, lets you bathe and rest your legs after the climb and feel the old pilgrim-town atmosphere after the day-trippers leave.

Stays typically include dinner and breakfast; rates vary by room and season (2026) — book ahead, especially around the April kabuki and cherry season. On the Konpira slope, a short uphill walk or shuttle from the stations. Other upscale options in town include Kotosankaku.

A hands-on udon-making school at the foot of the Konpira approach, where in about an hour you mix, foot-knead (to a backing track), rest, roll and cut your own Sanuki noodles, then boil and eat them — taking home your rolling pin and a diploma. It is unabashedly touristy and completely good fun, and it teaches you, in your own hands, why the famous chew is the result of strong flour, salt water and a lot of stamping. A lively, family-friendly start to a day built around the noodle itself.

Sessions run through the day, about 60-90 minutes; reserve ahead. At the base of the Konpira approach, a short walk from JR/Kotoden Kotohira. Wear clothes you can move in; you eat what you make, so it counts as an early lunch.

A much-loved specialist near Zentsuji devoted to kamaage udon — noodles served hot in their cooking water in a wooden tub, dipped into a small jug of intense, just-made dashi you warm at the table. The shop mills and brews its own stock and the noodles are unusually soft and sweet, the dipping broth dark and aromatic; many Kagawa people will tell you it is the best kamaage in the prefecture. A bright, busy place with a big car park, it draws queues that move fast.

Open about 09:00-17:00, closed Wednesdays and Thursdays (open if a holiday) (approx., 2026). In Zentsuji near Konzoji station, easiest by car. The dashi jug is meant to be reheated on the tabletop burner before dipping — that is the ritual here.

A self-serve shop hidden up a quiet valley in the hills of Manno, famous for boiling its udon over a wood fire in a great iron cauldron, which gives the noodles a faint smokiness and an exceptionally firm bite. The house order is the 'hiya-atsu' — cold noodles in hot dashi — or the reverse, and you eat at rough tables looking onto the woods. Remote enough that getting here feels like part of the meal, it is a pilgrim's last bowl, the deep-country end of a Sanuki udon crawl.

Open about 09:00-14:30 (or until the noodles run out), closed Thursdays (approx., 2026). Up a valley in Manno, reachable by car; sign-posting is sparse. Go before the early close — the dough sells out. Try the hiya-atsu to taste the firm, wood-boiled noodle at its best.