Eiheiji and the Fukui Coast

Chubu, Japan · City

The head temple of Soto Zen, where about a hundred and fifty monks have kept the same daily life going since 1244, half an hour from a modest provincial city with Japan's most thoroughly excavated castle town buried in a valley on its edge. On the coast: cliffs of columnar rock, a quiet hot-spring town, and the most expensive crab in Japan from November to March.

The essentials

Getting there

Train + bus — You sleep in Fukui city and everything radiates from there. The Hokuriku Shinkansen reached Fukui on 16 March 2024 (the Kanazawa-to-Tsuruga extension), which changed every route into the prefecture. From Tokyo there are through trains: about 2h50 on the fastest Kagayaki and around 3h20 on the Hakutaka, which makes more stops, for roughly 16,000 yen, covered by the nationwide JR Pass. From Osaka and Kyoto there is no longer a direct train: the Thunderbird limited express now terminates at Tsuruga, where you cross the platform to the shinkansen (8-10 minutes), for a total of about 1h50 from Osaka (around 9,000 yen) and 1h25 from Kyoto. From Nagoya, the Shirasagi limited express to Tsuruga plus the shinkansen, about 2h15. Kanazawa is 25-30 minutes away by shinkansen, Toyama about 45. Inside the prefecture, note that the old JR stretch of the Hokuriku main line became Hapi-Line Fukui, a third-sector railway no JR Pass covers, and the two local lines that reach the good stuff belong to the private Echizen Railway. For Eiheiji, the direct Eiheiji Liner bus leaves from bay 1 at the east exit of Fukui station, takes 28 minutes and costs 1,000 yen as of 1 October 2026 (it was 750); there are six departures between 9:50 and 14:50, seats are first-come with no reservations, so on a holiday weekend don't bank on the last one. The alternative is the Echizen Railway to Eiheiji-guchi plus a 15-minute local bus. For Ichijodani, Keifuku bus 62 from the west exit (25 minutes), the Asakura direct bus from the east exit (16 minutes), or a train on the JR Kuzuryu line — that one is still JR — to Ichijodani, 15 minutes plus a 3-minute walk to the museum, though very few trains run. Both buses are covered by the Asakura-Eiheiji one-day pass, 1,800 yen until 30 September 2026 and 2,000 after, which pays off if you do the temple and the ruins the same day. For Tojinbo, the Echizen Railway to Mikuniminato (50 minutes, 820 yen) plus a 5-minute bus, or a bus from Awara-Onsen station (40 minutes, 790 yen, with a 1,500-yen two-day pass). The Echizen Railway sells a 1,200-yen one-day pass, but only at weekends, on public holidays and in peak periods. A car shortens everything and all but pays for itself on the Echizen coast.

Frequently asked questions about Eiheiji and the Fukui Coast

What to do in Eiheiji and the Fukui Coast: 29 activities

• Daihonzan Eiheiji 2 h must-see Eiheiji · 30 min

  One of the two head temples of Soto Zen, founded by Dogen in 1244 in a valley of 600-year-old cedars. It is not a monument: around 150 monks live and train inside, and the visit threads through the seven main halls on wooden corridors and stairways while they go about their work. Open 8:30 to 16:30, 700 yen and 300 for school children, and the temple itself asks you to arrive before 16:00. Expect a lot of walking in your socks, hundreds of steps, and no pushchairs allowed for that very reason.

• The Ichijodani ruins and the rebuilt street 2.5 h must-see Ichijodani, Fukui · 25 min

  A narrow valley where the Asakura clan kept a city of some ten thousand people for a century, burned by Nobunaga in 1573 and then buried, which preserved it whole underground. Excavation has gone on since 1967, and you can now walk streets with their foundations, wells and drains, four stone gardens, and two hundred metres of street rebuilt on the original footings with furnished samurai and artisan houses. The rebuilt street costs 330 yen; the rest of the 278-hectare site is open and free, and it runs a good two kilometres up the valley from the museum — at weekends and on holidays from April to November a free shuttle links the two ends, and the rest of the year you walk.

• The Tojinbo cliffs 1.5 h must-see Mikuni, Sakai · 55 min

  A kilometre of coast where andesite cooled into vertical columns up to twenty-five metres high, a formation known from only a handful of places in the world; a Natural Monument since 1935. You walk out over the rock, with no railings and nobody supervising, so it is genuinely slippery in rain or wind. Free and always open; the observation tower next door costs 500 yen and, oddly enough, you cannot see the cliffs from the top.

• An afternoon of zazen at Eiheiji 1 h Eiheiji · 30 min

  An open 50-minute sitting at 10:00, 13:30 and 15:30, no booking: you sign up five minutes beforehand at the temple office and go up to the Kichijokaku. It costs a 500-yen offering on top of the 700-yen admission. A monk explains posture and breathing, then there is silence; loose clothing is expected, no tight jeans or short skirts, and you take your shoes off.

• Awara Onsen 3 h Awara · 40 min

  The prefecture's hot-spring town since 1883: a flat district of large ryokan with nothing picturesque about it but good water and saner prices than Kaga or Kinosaki. In front of Awara-Yunomachi station is the Ashiyu, a cypress-wood foot bath with five pools fed by two different springs, free and open 7:00 to 23:00 all year, and next to it the Yataimura, half a dozen food stalls where you can eat without booking into a ryokan. Mind the two stations: the shinkansen stops at Awara-Onsen, ten minutes by bus or taxi from the bathing quarter, while the local Echizen Railway drops you at Awara-Yunomachi in the middle of it, 40 minutes from Fukui. This is the alternative to sleeping in Fukui if you want a hot spring or crab.

• Echizen crab 2.5 h booking only 6 Nov - 20 Mar

  The season opens at midnight on 6 November and shuts on 20 March, no exceptions. A male with the yellow tag on its claw, certifying it was landed at a Fukui port, costs between 20,000 and 50,000 yen per crab, and a ryokan with crab on the plan runs 15,000 to 60,000 yen per person with two meals: this is an expense, not a cheap treat. The female, seiko-gani, is fished only from 6 November to 31 December and goes for 1,500-3,000 yen with its roe inside — it is the one local people actually eat.

• Echizen oroshi-soba 1 h

  Fukui's everyday dish: coarse, dark local buckwheat noodles served cold under a mound of grated daikon with the broth poured straight over, not alongside. Shops around town serve it for 700-900 yen and most close by mid-afternoon. The new crop, shin-soba, arrives in October and November and is announced on the door.

• Ichijodani Asakura Clan Museum 1.5 h Ichijodani, Fukui · 25 min

  Opened in October 2022 at the mouth of the valley, this is the museum the site had been missing: it preserves in situ the stone wharf uncovered when the plot was excavated and reconstructs part of Yoshikage Asakura's residence at full scale, tatami and inner garden included. 700 yen, or 820 with the rebuilt street; 9:00 to 17:00, last entry 16:30, closed Mondays and 28 December to 2 January. Worth seeing before you go up the valley.

• Mikuni Matsuri 4 h Mikuni, Sakai · 50 min only 19-21 May

  From 19 to 21 May, fixed dates every year, six floats topped by warrior figures of paper and wood up to six and a half metres tall come out of their sheds and are hauled through streets that barely fit them. The 20th is the main day: the floats gather in front of Mikuni Shrine at noon, set off at one, and are not back in their sheds until eight or nine at night. It is free, there are shuttle buses from the station, and you do not need to stay nearby.

• Sauce katsudon at Europe-ken 1 h

  In Fukui the katsudon has no egg: three thin breaded pork cutlets dipped in a dark sweet-sour sauce over rice. Masutaro Takabatake brought it back after six years cooking in Berlin, put it on a menu in Tokyo in 1913 and returned to his native Fukui in 1924 after the Kanto earthquake; his house, Europe-ken, still serves it in the Junka district, ten minutes' walk from the station, for 1,180 yen. Open 11:00 to 19:50, closed Mondays and Tuesdays; expect a queue and no reservations.

• Sleeping at Eiheiji: the one-night sanzen 18 h booking Eiheiji · 30 min

  The temple takes lay participants for one night on a handful of set dates each month, around 10,000 yen with two meals: arrival before 15:00, a shojin dinner with no meat or fish eaten in silence with a fixed order for each bowl, three or four 40-minute sittings, a shared room separated by sex, the bell at 4:00, dawn zazen and then the morning service with the monks. It is not lodging: you book by phone with the training division (0776-63-4361), phones go off, there is no talking or photography inside, and you clean before you leave. Note that the English-language programme for international visitors is suspended from spring through autumn 2026, and the one still running is conducted in Japanese only.

• The Tojinbo sightseeing boat 1 h Mikuni, Sakai · 55 min

  The cliffs only make sense from the water, where you see the full column from top to bottom. It is a 30-minute round trip, 2,000 yen since the August 2026 fare rise (1,000 for children), leaving continuously from 9:00 to 16:00 — until 15:30 in winter — with about fifteen minutes' wait. There is no service from 29 December to 31 January, and in a swell the boat either boards at Sunset Beach instead or does not sail at all, which in winter means many days: do not count on it.

• Yokokan Garden 1 h

  The pleasure villa of the Matsudaira lords of Fukui, with a pond at the centre and study pavilions arranged around it, designed to be looked at from inside while sitting. It burned in 1945 and was rebuilt in 1993 from 1823 plans; it is a national Place of Scenic Beauty. 220 yen, free under 15 and over 70, ten minutes' walk from the station. From March to early November it stays open until 19:00, which is the best hour to be there.

• A night at the Hakujukan, the temple's inn 14 h booking Eiheiji · 30 min

  Five minutes' walk from the temple gate, the Hakujukan is the lodging Eiheiji points you to when there is no sanzen place: your own room with a communal bath, a shojin dinner, and a timetable that does include the things that matter. Check-in at 14:30, zazen at 15:30 in the temple's Kichijokaku — or in the inn's own hall when the temple's is closed — and at 4:05 in the morning the group sets off from reception for the 4:30 dharma talk and the 5:30 service. It is expensive, on the order of 30,000 yen per person with two meals, and books up months ahead. It is comfortable, and for that very reason it is not the same as sleeping inside.

• Cherry blossom on the Asuwa river 1.5 h only 28 Mar - 15 Apr

  Two kilometres of embankment along the Asuwa planted with old cherry trees that close overhead into a tunnel, fifteen minutes' walk from the centre. They are lit at night during the bloom and the whole city comes out to eat under them; the date moves, but it usually falls between late March and the first days of April.

• Echizen Matsushima Aquarium 2 h Mikuni, Sakai · 50 min

  A small, pleasantly dated aquarium looking out to sea between Tojinbo and the beach: you can touch almost everything, feed the fish, walk on a glass floor over the tanks and watch the penguins waddle out among the visitors. 2,200 yen for adults, 1,200 for school children, 600 for ages three to six; open daily 9:00 to 17:30 (to 16:30 from November to February). With the shows it takes an hour and a half to two hours.

• ESHIKOTO, the Kokuryu sake estate 1.5 h Eiheiji · 25 min

  Kokuryu Shuzo, Fukui's best-known sake house, has built a set of timber buildings on the bank of the Kuzuryu river with a shop for its estate-only labels, a patisserie-bar called acoya looking out over the water, a soba restaurant and a bakery. Closed Wednesdays, with hours that vary by venue (shop 10:00-17:00, acoya 8:00-16:00). It sits on the road between Fukui and Eiheiji and has parking, but it is awkward to fit in without a car.

• Katamachi and Fukui sake at night 2.5 h

  Katamachi is Fukui's drinking quarter, a few streets south of the station with small izakaya serving the prefecture's sake — Kokuryu, Born, Ippongi — and fish from the Sea of Japan. Nothing is set up for foreign visitors and almost no one speaks English; in crab season you need to book, and many places close on Mondays.

• Maruoka Castle 1.5 h Maruoka, Sakai · 40 min

  A small, austere keep from 1576, the only one left standing anywhere in Hokuriku and one of Japan's twelve originals — with one honest caveat: it collapsed in the 1948 Fukui earthquake and was reassembled in 1955 using the salvaged timber, which is why it is an Important Cultural Property rather than a National Treasure. It has been under seismic restoration since March 2026 and will be until November 2027, with limited windows when you can go inside and see the work; the park, the walls and the short-letter museum stay open, 450 yen, 8:30 to 17:00. Check before going.

• The Echizen washi paper village 2.5 h Echizen · 45 min

  Paper has been made by hand in the Imadate valley for some fifteen hundred years; it is the paper Japan's old banknotes were printed on and the paper Picasso and others worked with. Three buildings in a row: the Papyrus-kan, where you make your own sheet from 600 yen, a paper museum in a papermaker's house, and Okamoto Shrine, the only shrine in Japan dedicated to the goddess of paper. Open 9:00 to 16:00, closed Tuesdays; you take the train to Takefu and then a Nanetsu-line bus to the Washi-no-Sato stop, so a car makes it far easier.

• The Megane Museum in Sabae 2 h Sabae · 20 min

  Sabae assembles the overwhelming majority of the spectacle frames made in Japan, a trade that began in 1905 as winter work for farmers snowed in to the eaves. The museum tells that story with historic pieces, and the shop next door sells frames from the town's own workshops, many of them titanium. Museum and workshop 10:00 to 17:00, shop until 19:00, closed Wednesdays; there is a make-your-own-frames class, by reservation. Twenty minutes from Fukui by train.

• The morning service with the monks 1.5 h booking Eiheiji · 30 min

  You can attend choka, the daily pre-dawn service where dozens of monks chant together in the Hatto, without staying inside. It is held year round at an hour that shifts with the season, and you must phone the day before (0776-63-3102); the offering is around 1,000 yen. Since it starts before any bus runs, in practice it means sleeping in Eiheiji or driving.

• The old port of Mikuni 1.5 h Mikuni, Sakai · 50 min

  Mikuni was the harbour of the kitamaebune, the ships that carried Hokuriku rice to Osaka, and Kitamae street still has the shipowners' houses, narrow at the front and long behind, plus the old Morita Bank, built in 1920 on the profits of that trade, with its period plasterwork and strongroom: free to enter, 9:00 to 17:00, closed Mondays, fifteen minutes' walk from Mikuni station. It is a short hop from the Tojinbo boat pier, so the two pair up well.

• The painted ceiling of the Sanshokaku 0.5 h Eiheiji · 30 min

  The first hall on the route, built in 1930, has a ceiling of 230 coffered panels painted by 144 artists of the day: flowers, birds and five hidden animals that Japanese visitors lie on the floor to find. It is included in the 700-yen admission and is where you get the introductory briefing before climbing into the rest of the temple.

• The temple-gate street: soba and goma-dofu 1 h Eiheiji · 30 min

  The two hundred metres of shops and eating houses in front of the temple live off two things: Eiheiji soba, served cold with grated daikon, and goma-dofu, the sesame tofu that is part of the monks' diet and is sold here fresh to take away. Most places shut around 16:00 or 17:00, when the last coach party leaves, so eat early.

• Daffodils on the Echizen coast 3 h Echizen · 60 min only 15 Dec - 28 Feb

  In the depths of winter the terraces dropping to the sea along the Echizen coast fill with wild daffodils: this is one of Japan's three great daffodil grounds, the flowers are picked by hand and sold cut, and the terraced landscape is designated an Important Cultural Landscape. They bloom from mid-December to February, against a grey sea and often with snow between the flowers. You need a car or one of the few buses from Fukui, a good hour each way, and it pairs with eating crab at Echizen port.

• Fukui Castle ruins and the Fukunoi well 0.75 h

  What is left of the Matsudaira castle is the moat and the stone walls — and, inside the main enclosure, the prefectural government offices: you cross the bridge and walk among civil servants, which no other Japanese castle offers. Inside are the Fukunoi well, said to be the source of the city's name, and the roofed Yamazato-guchi bridge, rebuilt in 2018. Free and always open, five minutes from the station.

• Mikuni Sunset Beach 3 h Mikuni, Sakai · 50 min

  Fukui's sandy beach, long and facing west, with lifeguards and beach shacks in July and August only: it is the one stretch of this coast where people genuinely swim, ten minutes by bus from Tojinbo. Outside those two months there are no services and the Sea of Japan turns rough, but the sunset justifies the walk.

• The dinosaur plaza at the station 0.5 h

  At the west exit of Fukui station stand three life-size dinosaurs that move and roar — fukuiraptor, fukuisaurus and fukuititan, the three species named after the prefecture — with a painted wall behind them. It is free and always there, and it is the easiest way to explain to children why Fukui makes so much of its fossils before heading up to the big museum in Katsuyama.

What only happens on specific dates

• Echizen crab 6 Nov - 20 Mar
• Daffodils on the Echizen coast 15 Dec - 28 Feb
• Cherry blossom on the Asuwa river 28 Mar - 15 Apr
• Mikuni Matsuri 19-21 May

Chains well with

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