Tojinbo Cliffs, Awara Onsen & the Mikuni Port Town — A Fukui Coast Escape, 2 Days

Tojinbo is a kilometre of sheer columnar basalt — five- and six-sided rock pillars sheared off into the Sea of Japan — and a formation so unusual that geologists rank it among only a few comparable sites worldwide. You can walk right out onto the flat tops of the columns above the surf, peer down the vertical joints to the water, and feel the weather come straight off the sea; it is wild, free and unfenced, so mind your footing near the edges. A line of souvenir stalls and seafood shacks backs the approach, but the rock itself is the thing, especially in the raking light of late afternoon.

Free, open at any time; exposed cliff edges — take care. About 25 minutes from Awara by bus or car. Allow about an hour.

The best way to grasp the scale of Tojinbo is from below, and a small sightseeing boat runs a roughly thirty-minute loop out along the cliff base and around the offshore rocks, giving you the columns rising sheer overhead and a view of caves and stacks you cannot see from the top. It is entirely weather-dependent — the boats sit out rough days and pause over deep winter — so confirm sailings on the morning and take the chance if it is offered. On a calm day it is the highlight of the headland, the swell sliding you under walls of stone.

About ¥1,800 (approx., 2026); roughly 09:00-16:00 (to 15:30 in winter), weather permitting, closed Wednesdays and Dec 29-Jan 31. Pier near the cliffs. Allow about 30 minutes.

A short way up the coast, a long vermilion footbridge crosses to Oshima, a small uninhabited island ringed by the same columnar rock and cloaked in a dark evergreen forest that has never been logged, with the little Ominato Shrine at its heart. Local belief holds the island sacred and the woods primeval, and the loop path around it — over wave-cut basalt, through the close green canopy, past sea views on every side — takes perhaps forty quiet minutes. It is a complete change of register from the busy cliffs: hushed, shaded and faintly otherworldly, the kind of place that lingers.

Free, open island reached by footbridge; uneven rock paths. A few minutes north of Tojinbo. Allow about 40 minutes for the loop.

Down in Mikuni port, Mikuni Inkyosho is the easy place for a proper Sea-of-Japan seafood lunch — generous kaisendon bowls heaped with the morning's catch year-round, and, in winter, the prefecture's prized Echizen crab served as a course for those who plan ahead. The fish is local and the room unfussy, a working seafood house rather than a scene, and it sits within easy reach of both the cliffs and the onsen. If you are travelling between roughly November and March, ask about crab when you reserve; the rest of the year the sashimi bowls are the move.

Kaisendon about ¥1,800-3,500 (approx., 2026); Echizen crab courses winter-only (approx. Nov-Mar), reserve ahead. In Mikuni port. Allow about an hour.

Awara is Fukui's leading hot-spring town, and Beniya — rebuilt and reopened in 2021 after a fire, and now Michelin-listed — is its finest ryokan and the strongest luxury-leaning stay in the prefecture. Expect quiet contemporary-traditional rooms, attentive service, indoor and open-air baths fed by the Awara springs, and a kaiseki dinner built on Sea-of-Japan seafood and Echizen produce. It is not a glossy international five-star — Fukui simply does not have those — but as an honest, refined Japanese inn it is the right place to slow down between the cliffs and the old town. Check in early enough to take the bath before dinner.

Michelin-listed upper-tier ryokan at Awara Onsen; not an international five-star. Check-in from mid-afternoon; kaiseki dinner and onsen baths. Honest, refined Japanese inn.

Mikuni was a wealthy port on the kitamae-bune coastal shipping route, and its old quarter preserves a long, atmospheric street of merchant houses, warehouses and townhouses behind the river mouth — a streetscape of dark wood, plastered walls and the distinctive 'kaguramae' facades the town is known for. It is a quiet, walkable district rather than a polished tourist set, with cafes and craft shops slipped into old buildings and the feel of a place that grew rich on the sea and never quite forgot it. Start here and let the morning unfold house by house.

Open streets, free to wander; individual houses keep their own hours. In Mikuni, about 20 minutes from Awara. Allow about 45 minutes for the street.

The Kishina family were Mikuni lumber merchants, and their restored townhouse is the best place to step inside the local 'kaguramae' style — a deep, narrow merchant house with a raised front gable, an earthen-floored work passage running back from the street, tatami reception rooms and a small inner garden. It is modest in scale and quietly informative, showing exactly how a middling shipping-era merchant lived and worked under one long roof. A short, well-kept visit that anchors the architecture of the whole quarter.

About ¥100-200 (approx., 2026); roughly 09:00-17:00, may close one weekday — confirm. On the Mikuni merchant street. Allow about 30 minutes.

The centrepiece of the old town is the former Morita Bank, a 1920 Western-style building put up by one of Mikuni's shipping-fortune families — a dignified masonry facade outside, and inside a high banking hall with elaborate plaster ceiling work that speaks to the wealth the port still commanded into the modern era. It is free to enter and quietly impressive, the one grand civic building among the wooden merchant houses, and it doubles as the visual heart of the preservation district. A short stop, but the room is worth the walk in.

Free entry; roughly 09:00-17:00, may close Mondays — confirm. In the heart of the Mikuni merchant street. Allow about 30 minutes.

On a wooded rise above the town, Mikuni Shrine is the great shrine of the port and the focus of the Mikuni Festival, whose towering warrior floats are paraded through the streets each May. Outside festival days it is a calm, green precinct of old trees, a handsome gate and stone lanterns, a few minutes' climb from the merchant street and a natural high point to take in before lunch. The shrine grounds give a sense of the town's standing — a port rich and proud enough to maintain a sanctuary on this scale.

Free, open shrine. A short climb from the merchant street. Allow about 30 minutes.

Takesho is a Mikuni institution for the port's seafood, a relaxed house that does crab and sushi properly — winter brings full Echizen crab courses for those who book, and the rest of the year the sushi and sashimi sets carry the same just-landed quality. It makes a fitting last meal before you head back to the Shinkansen, the kind of unshowy local table that quietly outclasses anything near a station. As ever with the crab, the season runs roughly November to March; outside it, trust the sushi.

Sushi sets about ¥2,000-3,500 (approx., 2026); Echizen crab courses winter-only (approx. Nov-Mar), reserve ahead. In Mikuni. Allow about an hour.