Uwajima & the Deep South: A Castle, a Garden & the Terraced Sea — 2 Days

Uwajima Castle is one of only twelve castles in Japan to keep its original Edo-period wooden keep, a small, beautifully proportioned three-storey tower of about 1666 standing on a wooded hill in the middle of the city. It was the seat of the Date clan, a branch of the great northern Date house of Sendai, who held Uwajima for ten generations; the keep was designed by the master engineer Todo Takatora and remade under the Date, and its hilltop, reached by stone-stepped paths through old trees, is a quiet green island above the streets. Compact and original, with the sea once lapping at its outer walls, it is the proud centre of the city and the natural first stop of the day.

Keep about ¥200 (approx., 2026); roughly 9:00-16:00 (until 17:00 Apr-Sep), open daily. In central Uwajima. Allow about 75 minutes including the climb.

Tensha-en is the stroll garden laid out in 1866 for the retired lords of the Uwajima Date, a small, exquisite pond garden built on reclaimed land at the edge of the castle town. Its design plays on the wisteria of the Date crest: arched wooden trellises bring the flowers down almost to the water of the heart-shaped pond, which is crossed by stone and earthen bridges and edged with rare bamboo and pines. It is a late, refined example of a daimyo garden, made when the age of the lords was already ending, and walked slowly in under an hour it gives the quieter, more cultivated side of the warrior city — the taste of the Date as well as their armour.

Admission about ¥310 (approx., 2026); roughly 8:30-17:00. A short distance from the castle. Allow about 45 minutes.

Uwajima's signature dish is its own kind of tai-meshi, sea-bream rice, and it is quite unlike the cooked version found elsewhere in Ehime. Here the bream is sliced raw and marinaded in a sauce of soy, mirin, sesame and a raw egg, then poured with its sauce over a bowl of hot rice and eaten at once — a fisherman's and sea-lord's dish said to descend from the fast meals of the Iyo pirates. The city's restaurants serve it with the bream caught in the bay outside, and it is the one thing to eat in Uwajima. Taken in the middle of the castle-city day, it is a vivid, local lunch between the garden and the museum, and a taste of the deep south's sea.

A bowl about ¥1,500-2,500 (approx., 2026); restaurants generally 11:00-15:00. In central Uwajima. Allow about 60 minutes.

The Date Museum holds the collection passed down through the ten generations of the Uwajima Date lords, much of it the original armour, swords, tea utensils, lacquer, documents and personal effects of the ruling house rather than later copies. The galleries trace the line from the warlord Date Masamune's son, who founded the Uwajima branch, through the late-Edo lord Date Munenari, a notable reformer and one of the 'four wise lords' of the end of the shogunate. After the keep and the garden it gives the human story of the family who built them, and is the deepest indoor stop in the city. It closes on Mondays, so plan the castle-city day around that.

Admission about ¥510 (approx., 2026); roughly 9:00-17:00, closed Mondays. Near Tensha-en. Allow about 60 minutes.

Uwajima is one of the few places in Japan that keeps the tradition of togyu, bull 'sumo', in which two enormous bred bulls lock horns and push until one turns and flees, urged on by their handlers in a roaring sand ring — a contest closer to sumo than to a Spanish bullfight, with no killing and the bulls treated as prized athletes. The city's covered municipal bullring stages the tournaments, and when one is on it is one of the most electric folk spectacles in Ehime. Tournaments are held on only about four dates a year — at New Year, in early April, in mid-August at Obon and in late October — so unless your visit lands on one, you can see the ring and learn the tradition but will not catch a bout. Worth the stop either way for a culture found almost nowhere else.

Tournament admission about ¥3,000 on the roughly four event dates; ring visitable off-days (approx., 2026). North of the centre. Allow about 45 minutes off-tournament.

The Kiya is a historic ryokan in the centre of Uwajima, a wooden inn of the old town that has been carefully kept and lightly reworked as a place to stay and to gather. Uwajima has no luxury hotel — the far south of Ehime simply does not run to one — and the honest pleasure of lodging here is a quiet night in a traditional building among real townspeople, rather than a resort. Settle in at the end of the castle-city day, and let the city's slow, unhurried rhythm take over before dinner of the bay's fish and the local sake. For travellers who want the genuine south, the modesty is the point.

Rooms modest, traditional (varies; approx., 2026); historic wooden ryokan. In central Uwajima. Check in and settle, about 30 minutes.

On a steep finger of land jutting into the sea on the Uwajima coast, the hamlet of Yusumizugaura farms the most dramatic terraced fields in Ehime — narrow stone-walled strips of earth stacked one above another up an almost vertical slope, climbing several hundred metres from the shore to the ridge in a great staircase of grey stone and green crop. Built and rebuilt by hand over generations to grow potatoes and vegetables where there was no flat land at all, they are a designated Important Cultural Landscape and a monument to sheer human persistence against the geography. Seen from the lookout with the blue ria coast below, they are one of the great sights of the Japanese countryside, and the heart of the second day.

Free; viewpoint open continuously, small visitor facility on site. On the Uwajima coast, reached by car. Allow about 50 minutes.

Inland from Uwajima, on the slopes of Mt Onigajo near the town of Matsuno, the Nametoko gorge is one of the loveliest river valleys in Shikoku — a long descent of clear water over smooth, sloping rock, named for the great sheets of stone the river slides across. The signature sight is the Yukiura-no-taki, where the water spreads in a broad white veil down a wide rock face, and a well-made path follows the river up through beech and maple forest past pools and cascades. It is gentle enough for a short walk and serious enough for a half-day hike, beautiful in the fresh green of early summer and the colour of autumn, and the perfect natural counterpoint to a day that began among stone terraces above the sea.

Free; trail open daylight hours, check conditions in winter or after rain. Near Matsuno, inland from Uwajima by car. Allow about 90 minutes.

At the mouth of the gorge, the visitor lodge and its restaurant make the natural place for lunch after the river walk, and the cooking is exactly of the place — the cold, clear water of these mountains is famous for trout and amago, the local landlocked salmon, grilled whole on skewers over charcoal, and the surrounding hills give wild mountain vegetables, soba and the chestnuts and citrus of the south. After a morning on the terraces and a walk up the rapids it is a simple, restorative country meal in the forest by the water, and the last stop of an unhurried two days in the deep south before the road back north.

A meal about ¥1,200-2,000 (approx., 2026); lodge restaurant generally 11:00-15:00. At the gorge near Matsuno. Allow about 60 minutes.