Aizu-Wakamatsu and Ouchi-juku

Tohoku, Japan · City, Countryside / satoyama

The capital of the last clan loyal to the shogun, which held out through a month-long siege in 1868 and still tells that story as its own: red-tiled Tsuruga Castle, the graves of the teenage Byakkotai, and a double-helix tower unlike anything else in Japan. An hour away in the mountains, Ouchi-juku keeps a whole street of thatched houses, and in between sit more award-winning sake breweries than almost anywhere else in the country.

The essentials

Getting there

Train — From Tokyo, take the Tohoku Shinkansen to Koriyama and change there to the Ban'etsu West Line: about 3 hours in all and around 9,500 yen. Mind which train you board: Hayabusa services do not stop at Koriyama, so you need a Yamabiko (1h20-1h30 to Koriyama, about 8,000 yen) and then a local or rapid train on to Aizu-Wakamatsu (65-80 minutes, 1,170 yen), running roughly hourly. There is no shinkansen or limited express into Aizu, so the last leg is a commuter train calling at every village. The cheap alternative is the coach from Busta Shinjuku: 4h30 by day, about 7 hours overnight, from 5,000 yen. From Nikko a beautiful slow route links the Tobu, Yagan and private Aizu railways, roughly 3 hours and 5,000 yen with two or three changes, plus one direct Revaty Aizu each way per day. From Niigata it is about 2h15 on the Ban'etsu West Line. In town nothing but the centre is within walking distance: the Haikara-san (anticlockwise, every 30 minutes) and Akabe (clockwise, hourly) tourist loop buses link the station, castle, Iimoriyama, Nanukamachi and Higashiyama for 250 yen a ride or 700 yen a day. On the 2011 nuclear accident, since travellers reasonably ask: the Fukushima Daiichi plant sits on the Pacific coast and Aizu-Wakamatsu lies on the far side of the Ou mountains, about 100 km away by road; the city was never evacuated, not even in part, and the city council itself publishes readings from its twenty monitoring points: in July 2026 they ran between 0.04 and 0.10 microsieverts per hour, against a national reference level of 0.23, and of the same order as the natural background in any European city. There are no access restrictions of any kind, on the railway, the food or the water.

Frequently asked questions about Aizu-Wakamatsu and Ouchi-juku

What to do in Aizu-Wakamatsu and Ouchi-juku: 31 activities

• Ouchi-juku, the thatched post town 4 h must-see Shimogo · 60 min

  A 450-metre dirt street with some thirty thatched houses lined up on both sides, deep in mountain farmland: it was a stage on the road linking Aizu with Nikko, the Aizu Nishi Kaido, and has been an Important Preservation District since 1981. What saved it was a residents' pact not to sell, not to rent and not to demolish. Entry is free; the old Honjin, the lords' lodging, has been rebuilt as an exhibition hall (250 yen adults, 150 yen children, 9:00-16:30, closed 29 December to 3 January). Getting there takes some planning: the Aizu Railway (private, not covered by any JR pass) from Aizu-Wakamatsu to Yunokami Onsen, 35-50 minutes and 1,060 yen, then the retro Saruyu-go bus, which runs only from mid-March to November, about six services each way a day between nine and four, 20 minutes and 1,100 yen for a two-day pass. From December to mid-March there is no bus: you take a taxi (15 minutes, around 2,000 yen each way) or an organised trip from Aizu-Wakamatsu. Shops shut around 17:00 and almost nobody stays the night, so from late afternoon it goes back to being a village.

• Sazaedo, the double-helix hall 0.5 h must-see

  A hexagonal wooden tower from 1796, 16.5 metres tall, with two independent spiral ramps: you go up one and down the other and never pass another visitor, something with no parallel in Japanese timber architecture. It was built so pilgrims could do the 33 Kannon of the Saigoku circuit in one go without leaving town. An Important Cultural Property, 400 yen adults and 200 yen children, open daily 8:15 to dusk and 9:00-16:00 from December to March. It sits on the slope of Iimoriyama, on the way up to the graves.

• Tsuruga Castle (Tsurugajo) 2 h must-see

  The only castle keep in Japan roofed in red tiles: in 2011 the roof was redone with the glazed akagawara it wore in the 19th century, and the red reads strongly against the white walls. It withstood a month-long siege in the Boshin War of 1868 without falling; the Meiji government pulled it down in 1874 and it was rebuilt in concrete in 1965, with five floors of Matsudaira-clan museum inside. Open daily 8:30-17:00 (last entry 16:30), 410 yen adults, 150 yen children; 520 yen with the Rinkaku tea house and 730 yen including the Oyakuen garden.

• Iimoriyama and the graves of the Byakkotai 1.5 h

  On 8 October 1868 twenty teenagers of the Byakkotai reserve corps withdrew to this hill, saw smoke over the town, believed the castle had fallen and nineteen of them disembowelled themselves; one, Iinuma Sadakichi, survived to tell it. The castle was in fact still holding. You climb 183 steps or take a paid slope conveyor (250 yen adults, 150 yen children, 8:00-17:00, until 16:00 in winter). The site is free, and at the top are the graves, a German memorial and a Roman column donated by Mussolini in 1928.

• A day out to the Goshiki-numa ponds 4 h Kitashiobara · 70 min

  Twenty to thirty ponds left by the 1888 eruption of Mt. Bandai, each a different colour — turquoise, emerald, cobalt — depending on the minerals and algae it carries. The interpretive trail that links them is about 4 km - measured from the Urabandai Visitor Center to the shore of Lake Hibara; from one trail entrance to the other it is 3.6 km - and takes an hour and a half according to the visitor center, which manages it; it is not a loop but a line between two entrances, the eastern one by the visitor center (Goshikinuma-iriguchi bus stop) and the western one at the Urabandai market hall (Urabandai-kogen-eki bus stop), so drivers usually walk one way and take the local bus back. The surface is bare earth with roots and stones, and it turns muddy after rain. It lies in Kitashiobara, a good hour from Aizu-Wakamatsu by bus with one change, and the Bandai Kogen services run mainly from April to November. This is black bear country and a special protection zone of the national park: stay on the path and take nothing. Climbing Mt. Bandai itself is a separate matter and has its own entry.

• Aizu Matsuri and the domain procession 4 h only three days in late September

  Three days in late September when the city re-enacts its own defeat: a lantern parade and the Aizu Bandaisan dance on the first night, and the next day the Hanko-gyoretsu, some five hundred people dressed as samurai, matchlock gunners and clan ladies marching through the centre from the castle. On the third day the Nisshinkan schoolchildren parade. In 2026 it fell on 19-21 September. It is free, but hotels fill months ahead.

• Aizu Painted Candle Festival 2.5 h only two nights in mid-February

  Two February evenings when ten thousand hand-painted candles burn on the snow in the grounds of Tsuruga Castle and in the Oyakuen garden, 17:30 to 20:30; in 2026 it fell on the 13th and 14th. It is free, and at Oyakuen they hand out amazake while it lasts and serve matcha with a sweet for 600 yen. It draws crowds from within the prefecture and very few foreigners; wear boots with grip, because trodden snow turns to ice.

• Aizu sake breweries and sake bars 2.5 h

  Fukushima has topped the National New Sake Appraisal for gold medals more often than any other prefecture this century, including nine straight editions up to 2022 and again in 2025 and 2026, with twenty gold-medal labels in the latest round, and most of those breweries are in Aizu. About a dozen remain in town between Nanukamachi and Omachi, several selling direct: Miyaizumi, Tsurunoe (maker of Yauemon), Suehiro. To taste without walking, the brewers' co-op counter and the local izakaya pour flights of three sakes for 700-1,200 yen. Breweries close at 17:00 and in deep winter some suspend visits because they are brewing.

• Higashiyama Onsen 3 h booking

  A hot-spring quarter wedged into a gorge fifteen minutes by bus from the castle (about 250 yen on the Haikara-san loop), with a dozen ryokan hanging over the Yukawa River. The water is a sodium-calcium sulphate and chloride spring, emerging at about 46 C, and the wounded of the Boshin War were treated here. For a bath without an overnight stay, the Higashiyama Grand Hotel opens its big bath 7:00-10:00 and 15:00-24:00 with no booking for 1,000 yen on weekdays, 1,100 yen at weekends and holidays and 1,650 yen on peak days, towel extra (330 yen), with tattoos not admitted unless covered. To stay, the Mukaitaki is the gem: an 1873 timber building, a registered cultural property, from around 25,000 yen per person with two meals.

• Moat cherry blossoms and the castle's night opening 2 h only about two weeks in mid-April

  The grounds hold around a thousand cherry trees and rank among Japan's hundred best blossom sites. Here they flower in mid-April, nearly three weeks later than Tokyo, which gives latecomers to the season a second chance. The keep's night opening is a matter of two specific evenings, not the whole season: in 2026 it was 11 and 12 April, last entry 19:30, closing 20:00, for the same 410 yen. The park itself is free and you pay only to go up the tower.

• Nanukamachi street 2 h

  Four hundred metres of the old Echigo highway turned into a shopping street of 1920s and 1930s facades: converted kura warehouses, a brick bank, windows full of lacquerware and dyed cotton, cafes roasting their own coffee. Shops open 10:00-18:00 and many close one weekday. This is where to buy crafts without ending up in a coach-party shop, and to see what Aizu is like away from the castle.

• Negi soba in Ouchi-juku 1 h Shimogo · 60 min

  Cold soba eaten with a whole leek as your chopstick, taking bites of it between mouthfuls. The custom comes from local weddings, where cutting anything was a bad omen. It runs 1,300-1,600 yen in the houses along the main street, which serve at lunchtime and close early; you can also order it without the leek if the gag does not appeal. Pair it with shingoro, pounded rice cakes coated in walnut miso and grilled over charcoal by the doorways.

• Ouchi-juku Snow Festival 4 h booking Shimogo · 60 min only the second weekend of February

  Two days in February when hundreds of lanterns carved into the snow are lit along the street, with fireworks on the first night and a procession of men in loincloths crossing the village. The problem is getting back: in winter there is no regular bus and the last Aizu Line trains leave early, so most people come on an organised coach from Aizu-Wakamatsu or book a taxi weeks ahead. It is -5 to -10 C at dusk and the street is sheet ice.

• Suehiro Kaeigura sake brewery 1 h

  A sake brewery founded in 1850 in the town centre, with its original timber warehouse open to visitors and a free half-hour guided tour that explains koji, pressing and why Aizu's water yields such clean sake. Tours run at 10:00, 11:00, 13:00, 14:00, 15:00 and 16:00 from March to November, and only at 11:00, 13:00 and 15:00 from December to February; closed the second Wednesday of the month. There is a tasting at the end and a cafe in the warehouse, Kura Kissa An, open 10:00-16:30.

• Aizu Bukeyashiki samurai residence 1.5 h

  A full-scale reconstruction of the residence of Saigo Tanomo, the clan's chief retainer, with thirty-eight rooms and mannequins staged in the September 1868 scene where twenty-one women and children of his household killed themselves before imperial troops arrived. It is didactic and unflinching, and works well with older children. Open 8:30-17:00 April to November and 9:00-16:30 the rest of the year; 1,000 yen adults, 600 yen junior high, 500 yen primary.

• Aizu lacquerware: workshops and shops 1.5 h booking

  Aizu has been lacquering since Lord Gamo Ujisato brought craftsmen from Omi in 1590, and it is one of the country's three great urushi centres alongside Wajima and Kiso; its signatures are gold-powder decoration and red over black. In Nanukamachi and at the Aizu Bukeyashiki there are one- or two-hour maki-e or polishing workshops for 2,000-4,000 yen, bookable a few days ahead. A good soup bowl runs past 20,000 yen, but a pair of chopsticks or a small bowl goes for 3,000-5,000 yen.

• Aizu painted candles 1 h

  Vegetable-wax candles hand-painted with peonies, chrysanthemums or camellias, which began as altar flowers for the months when no real flowers grew in Aizu. They have been made since the 16th century and few workshops remain; Hoshiban, in the centre, still paints them in public view and sells singles from about 800 yen. At several places you can paint one yourself in half an hour for 1,200-1,500 yen.

• Ashinomaki Onsen 3 h booking

  The city's other hot spring, twenty minutes south on the Aizu Line, far quieter than Higashiyama and with open-air baths set straight above the Okawa river canyon. It is a natural stop on the way to or back from Ouchi-juku the same day, since it is on the same line. Several ryokan open their baths to the public 11:00-15:00 for 800-1,500 yen; ring ahead, as some close them when the hotel is full.

• Climbing Mt. Seaburi, the balcony between the valley and the lake 5 h only 1 May - 30 Nov

  The ridge that divides the Aizu basin from Lake Inawashiro, some 840 m at its highest point according to the Forestry Agency, the only authority that publishes an altitude for this hill and the body that manages the 500 hectares of the Aizu-Higashiyama recreation forest here — one of Japan's hundred forest-bathing woods. From the Higashiyama hot-spring quarter it is half a morning up forest track and path through cedar and red pine; no authority publishes the height gain or the walking time. At the top there is a lookout and a rest house, and on a clear day you see the Aizu basin, Mt. Bandai and the lake all at once. The prefectural road to the summit closes from December to late April; the forest itself is free and open all year, with twenty parking spaces. This is black bear country, and the Forestry Agency asks walkers to carry a bell and not to go alone.

• Kozuyu and wappameshi 1.5 h

  Kozuyu is Aizu's celebration dish: a clear broth of dried scallop with taro, carrot, kikurage mushrooms and small flour dumplings, served in a lacquer bowl and devised for a landlocked region where everything arrived dried along the salt road. Wappameshi is rice steamed in a round box of bent cedar, with salmon, mushrooms or mountain vegetables. Traditional restaurants in the centre serve them together on set menus for 1,800-3,000 yen.

• Nisshinkan, the Aizu domain school 2 h

  The academy where the sons of Aizu samurai were educated from the age of ten, and which produced the Byakkotai; it had Japan's first swimming pool, for teaching men to swim in armour, and an astronomical observatory. The original burned in 1868 and this is a faithful 1987 reconstruction on the edge of town, about twenty minutes by car or taxi from the centre, with no direct tourist bus. You can shoot a bow (500 yen, five arrows) or sit zazen or take part in a tea ceremony (2,900 yen including admission). Open daily 9:00-17:00, last entry 16:00; 1,800 yen adults, 900 yen junior high, 800 yen primary. It is about 25 minutes by Kato/Minato line bus from the station, or 15 by taxi.

• Oyakuen garden 1 h

  A daimyo stroll garden with a central pond and island, which the lords of Aizu also turned into a medicinal herb garden in the 17th century to supply remedies to the townspeople; over three hundred labelled species still grow in the herb beds. It served as an improvised hospital during the 1868 siege. Open daily 8:30-17:00 (last entry 16:30), 330 yen adults and 160 yen schoolchildren; matcha in the pavilion is 600 yen more.

• Ozatoro sightseeing train on the Aizu Line 1.5 h booking only 1 Apr - 30 Nov

  A two-car train between Aizu-Wakamatsu and Aizu-Tajima with three seat types: an open trolley car with wooden benches, a tatami room with low tables, and reclining observation seats. It slows down and halts on three bridges over the Okawa gorge so there is time to look. It runs mainly Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from April to November. Every seat is numbered: you buy a reservation on top of the fare, 500 yen in the ordinary cars and 1,000 yen in the trolley. No JR pass covers it, because the line is private.

• Painting an akabeko 1 h

  The red papier-mache cow with the nodding head is Aizu's toy-amulet: legend says a red ox helped raise a temple at Yanaizu in the 9th century, and since the smallpox epidemic of the 16th it has been given to children as protection. At the Aizu Bukeyashiki, the craft centre by the castle and several Nanukamachi shops you can paint one for 1,000-1,500 yen in about forty minutes, no booking needed except for groups.

• Rinkaku tea house 0.5 h

  A tea pavilion the Ashina clan had Sen no Shoan build, the adopted son of Sen no Rikyu, when he took refuge in Aizu after his father's forced suicide in 1591. It survived the castle's fall because a local dismantled it and carried it to his own property in 1872; it was returned to its site in 1990. It stands inside the castle grounds (210 yen alone, 520 yen with the keep) and serves matcha with an Aizu sweet for about 600 yen.

• Sauce katsudon 1 h

  A breaded pork cutlet dipped in sweet Worcestershire sauce and served over rice with raw cabbage, no egg: that is how Aizu does katsudon, and locals defend it with some belligerence against the Tokyo version. More than forty restaurants belong to the official trail and it runs 1,100-1,600 yen. Several close on Mondays and many open only at lunch and again 17:00-20:00.

• SL Ban'etsu Monogatari steam train 3.5 h booking only 1 Apr - 30 Nov

  A 1946 C57 180 steam locomotive hauling seven 1930s-style carriages between Aizu-Wakamatsu and Niigata through the Agano valley, with an observation car, a lounge and a small onboard museum. It runs Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from April to November, one service each way; the full trip takes about three and a half hours. A seat reservation is required (around 840 yen on top of the fare) and it sells out weeks ahead in autumn. The JR EAST PASS covers both fare and reservation.

• The old Takizawa road: two passes down to Lake Inawashiro 6 h only 15 Apr - 15 Nov

  Fukushima Prefecture signposts this as stage 18 of the Tohoku Nature Trail, 'the path that follows the Takizawa road': 8.8 km from the Takizawa district at the foot of Iimoriyama to Tonokuchi on the shore of Lake Inawashiro, crossing the Takizawa and Kutsukake passes with a surviving stretch of old stone paving. This was Aizu's road towards Shirakawa, and the road the teenagers of the Byakkotai walked up and back down in October 1868; the walk strings together the Takizawa post station, the Funaishi boulder, the Kowashimizu spring, the Akaiyachi peat bog and the Jurokkyo sluice gate. It makes a short day — three to four hours of walking depending on pace and stops — and you return by bus or train from the lakeside.

• The Tadami Line into the interior 4 h

  One of Japan's finest rail rides: a single-track line running west out of Aizu-Wakamatsu across the Tadami valley through gorges and over eight bridges, the first of them the one in the famous photograph, which is in fact taken from a viewpoint in Mishima and not from the carriage window. The stretch between Aizu-Kawaguchi and Tadami was severed for eleven years by the July 2011 floods and only reopened on 1 October 2022, with just three round trips a day: plan it with the timetable in front of you or you will be stranded for four hours. The full fare is around 1,700 yen and the JR EAST PASS covers it. It is at its best under snow or in autumn colour.

• To-no-Hetsuri 1 h Shimogo · 55 min

  A kilometre of white tuff cliff above the Okawa River, eroded into columns and ledges that look like towers; the name comes from the Aizu dialect, where hetsuri means a crag at the water's edge. A narrow suspension bridge crosses to the base. It is free and one train stop from Yunokami Onsen, so it fits on the way to Ouchi-juku. The bridge closes in strong wind or ice, and in winter access to the rocks is usually shut.

• Yunokami Onsen station and its foot bath 0.5 h Shimogo · 50 min

  The only railway station in Japan with a thatched station building: the original burned down and it was rebuilt this way in 1987 to match Ouchi-juku. Inside an irori hearth burns much of the year and, beside the platform, a free hot-spring foot bath lets you wait for the train with your feet in the water; towels are sold for 100-200 yen at the shop. This is where you change to the bus or taxi up to Ouchi-juku, so you stop here anyway.

What only happens on specific dates

• Aizu Painted Candle Festival two nights in mid-February
• Ouchi-juku Snow Festival the second weekend of February
• Moat cherry blossoms and the castle's night opening about two weeks in mid-April
• Ozatoro sightseeing train on the Aizu Line 1 Apr - 30 Nov
• SL Ban'etsu Monogatari steam train 1 Apr - 30 Nov
• The old Takizawa road: two passes down to Lake Inawashiro 15 Apr - 15 Nov
• Climbing Mt. Seaburi, the balcony between the valley and the lake 1 May - 30 Nov
• Aizu Matsuri and the domain procession three days in late September

Chains well with

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