Iya Valley

Shikoku, Japan · Countryside / satoyama

The Heike who lost the war hid here, and eight centuries on their descendants still show visitors round the house. You cross a bridge woven from vines over the river, you farm slopes of up to forty degrees with no terracing, fertilised with grass cut on the mountain, and at Nagoro more than three hundred scarecrows with neighbours' faces outnumber the twenty or so people actually left. A private funicular drops a hundred and seventy metres to baths at the water's edge.

The essentials

Getting there

Car — Very limited public transport, a car is strongly recommended

What it is genuinely strong in

🧘 Wellness & unplugging🛌 Pure relaxation

Frequently asked questions about Iya Valley

What to do in Iya Valley: 51 activities

• Vine Bridge (Kazurabashi) 1 h must-see

  A traditional suspension bridge woven from vines over the Iya River.

• Canyon-floor rotenburo reached by private funicular 2 h

  The hotel's own funicular drops 170 metres down the slope to open-air baths at the river's edge, with alkaline water surfacing at 39 degrees. Day use is possible, but it closes Wednesdays.

• Chiiori, Alex Kerr's house 14 h booking

  A house from around 1720, the second oldest in Iya, bought by Alex Kerr in 1973 and the subject of his book 'Lost Japan'. It has no interior ceilings because in the Edo period tobacco was hung from the beams to cure; you can visit it or sleep there, around the irori and without a television.

• Climbing Mount Tsurugi 4 h

  Shikoku's second-highest summit at 1,955 metres, and one of the island's sacred shugendo mountains: the treasure rock at the top is said to hold the sword of emperor Antoku. A chairlift goes up in 15 minutes and from there three paths take under an hour each. It can freeze from October to May, and heavy rain closes the access road.

• Hiking to the Valley Viewpoints 3 h

  Mountain trails with views over the steep valley and its isolated villages.

• Making Iya soba from the grain 2 h booking

  You mill the buckwheat, knead it and cut Iya soba, shorter and more brittle than the usual kind because here the grain is grown on unirrigated terraces. Then you eat it in a dining room with an irori hearth, with mountain vegetables, venison, potato and tofu; whatever is left over you take with you.

• Nagoro, the scarecrow village 1.5 h

  A resident came back from Osaka in 2002 and, seeing the birds eating the seed, made a doll with her father's face; today there are more than 300 of them against some 20 inhabitants, placed working the terraces, waiting for the bus or filling the classrooms of the closed school. It is an inhabited hamlet, not a set: visit quietly and do not photograph the inside of the houses.

• Rafting the Koboke rapids 4 h booking

  The Yoshino at Koboke is one of the strongest whitewater stretches in Japan and, being dam-regulated, holds its flow even in midsummer. March to October; Koboke is markedly harder than Oboke, so check the age and level limits when booking.

• Sleeping in a kominka in Ochiai 14 h booking

  Eight thatched houses in the terraced hamlet, restored under Alex Kerr's direction and rented for exclusive use, with irori and tatami and no neighbours in sight. They began as an answer to the valley's abandonment: renting out the empty houses instead of demolishing them.

• Unpenji, temple number 66 3 h

  The highest of Shikoku's 88 temples, at 1,000 metres, where Tokushima, Kagawa and Ehime meet; founded by Kobo Daishi in 789. What people remember are its 500 stone rakan, of which it is said that every visitor finds one with their own face. Note: the ropeway climbs from the Kagawa side, not from Iya.

• A day working the slopes 3.5 h booking

  A local association programme to work alongside farmers on vertiginous slopes, understand the cones of dried grass that serve both as fertiliser and as a reserve of wild seeds, and eat with the family. It is the most direct way to talk to people who live in the valley.

• Biwa-no-taki Falls 1 h

  An easily accessible twin waterfall right beside the valley road.

• Canyoning in the Yoshino tributaries 4.5 h booking

  A descent with harness and rope through moss-covered rock tunnels and pools, with a final abseil of about 40 metres down a waterfall. A very short season, July to September.

• Dekomawashi over the fire 0.5 h

  The valley's snack: goishi potatoes, firm tofu and konnyaku on skewers, brushed with miso and turned over the coals. They are sold at the stalls beside the vine bridge.

• Fusuma karakuri of Iya 2 h only two weekends in October

  Theatre with moving scenery: dozens of painted sliding doors are flipped by hand in sequence to change the set of a rural shrine's stage. It survives in only two hamlets and is performed in October.

• Hashikura-ji and its ropeway 2.25 h

  Known as the inner shrine of Konpira, it is a special temple of the circuit and a classic link between Kotohira and number 66. The ropeway covers 950 metres in about four minutes.

• Heike Yashiki, the house of the Taira 1 h

  An 1867 house on a plot linked to the Heike who fled to Iya more than 800 years ago; its owners are the 20th generation of descendants of the man presented as personal physician to the child emperor Antoku. It keeps a fireproof storehouse and an irori that is lit every morning.

• Hirara-yaki and salt-grilled river fish 1.5 h booking

  Hirara-yaki is cooked on a stone slab with a wall of miso that holds in the broth, and comes with amego or ayu skewered and salt-grilled. It is served mainly at the lodgings in Oku-Iya.

• Ikeda Awa Odori Festival 2 h only 14-16 Aug

  A traditional summer dance festival in the nearby Ikeda district, a smaller version of the famous Awa Odori of Tokushima.

• Kamishiro Odori of Nishi-Iya 2 h only day 25 of the 6th lunar month

  A rain-prayer dance with more than 1,100 years of tradition, inscribed by UNESCO in 2022 as part of furyu-odori. It is performed at Zentoku's Tenman shrine on the 25th day of the sixth lunar month, which usually falls between July and August; depopulation makes it so hard to gather dancers that it is taught in the school.

• Kita samurai house in Oku-Iya 1 h

  Built in 1763, the largest house in the valley. It preserves the irazu-no-ma, the room set aside for ritual suicide, and in the garden a cedar 800 years old and 11 metres around. Closed Tuesdays and from December to March.

• Nishi-Awa fireworks 4 h booking only one Saturday in mid-November

  A national competition of pyrotechnicians with more than 20,000 shells, the largest in western Japan, on a Saturday in mid-November. All seats are paid and there is no free area.

• Oboke Gorge Boat Cruise 1 h

  A boat ride through a gorge of crystalline rock carved by the Yoshino River, at the entrance to the Iya Valley.

• Oku-Iya Double Vine Bridges (Niju Kazurabashi) 1 h

  A pair of vine bridges known as 'husband and wife,' in a more remote part of the valley, next to a traditional hand-pulled cable car (yaen).

• Reading the gorge: the Miyoshi geopark 1.5 h

  The greenish-white walls of Oboke are schist: sands laid down on the ocean floor some 100 million years ago, compressed 20 kilometres deep and then uplifted. The conglomeratic schist is designated a prefectural natural monument.

• Remote Mountain Onsen 1.5 h

  Secluded hot spring baths with views over the valley, very few foreign visitors. Warning: the valley has two different funicular onsen and they are not interchangeable; this one goes down to the bottom of the gorge and closes on Wednesdays.

• Sake and wine producers in Awa-Ikeda 2 h booking

  Ikeda was the trading hub of the Yoshino river and still has three working sake breweries that open their halls with a master brewer and sell directly, plus a local winery.

• Scenic train with an onboard menu 2.5 h booking

  Three-car sightseeing train between Tadotsu and Oboke, with themed spring, summer and autumn chapters and a seasonal menu served as it climbs the gorge. It runs only on Fridays, weekends and public holidays, and booking is required.

• Shikoku Sake Festival 2.5 h booking only the last Saturday of February

  The last Saturday of February, in the Ikeda sports hall and in two sessions, with new sake from all over Shikoku and a wooden masu included in the entry; at the same time the three local breweries open their halls to taste freshly pressed sake.

• Starry skies of Oku-Iya 1 h

  With no cities for tens of kilometres and the valley between 700 and 1,400 metres, light pollution is almost nil. The viewpoints at Ochiai and the open ground at Nagoro work well, but driving these roads at night calls for great care.

• The 'sky bath' at Shin-Iya Onsen 1.5 h

  Here the funicular goes up instead of down, to a rotenburo of blue Awa stone high on the hillside looking out over the valley. Guests have dinner around irori hearths, with charcoal-grilled ayu and Iya soba.

• The Terraced Village of Ochiai 1.5 h

  Farmhouses terraced up the mountainside, with almost no tourism.

• Viewpoint over the 'hi'-shaped meander 0.75 h

  From the gorge road the river traces exactly the Japanese character ひ; nearby is Shishi-iwa, a rock shaped like a lion and carved by the current.

• Viewpoints over Nishi-Awa slope farming 1.5 h

  A system of cultivation on slopes of up to 40 degrees, without terraces, fertilised with grass cut from the mountain meadows; the FAO recognised it in 2018 as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System. In autumn the koeguro, cones of dried grass, are visible everywhere.

• Vine basketry in Higashi-Iya 1.75 h booking

  Baskets and other objects are woven with the same vines used for the Kazurabashi bridge; each piece comes out unique because of the natural curve of the stem. You must book by phone the day before.

• Vine bridge and waterfall lit up 0.75 h

  After dark the Kazurabashi bridge and the Biwa waterfall are illuminated and can be seen from outside without paying the bridge toll. The hours change with the season, so confirm them.

• Yokai house and stone museum 1 h

  A double and very homemade museum at the Oboke service area: upstairs, the valley's monsters recreated with a quiz and picture-card theatre; downstairs, minerals, fossils and meteorites that explain the geology of the gorge. In 2008 the district was recognised as 'monstrous heritage to be handed down to posterity'.

• Bicarbonate bath in Nishi-Iya 1.5 h

  The easiest onsen to reach by public transport from Awa-Ikeda, and the fallback when the one in the canyon is closed because it is Wednesday.

• Day onsen in Oboke 1.5 h

  Alkaline onsen with views of the gorge and the Dosan line railway bridge, cheap and easy to reach if you arrive at Oboke by train.

• Game meat from the valley 1 h

  Venison and wild boar burgers from the area on a terrace above the Yoshino river: the modern version of a mountain cooking that has always used game.

• Higashi-Iya history and folklore museum 0.75 h

  Objects and documents of the Heike and of peasant life in the deep valley, with a screening room. Short opening hours, closed Wednesdays.

• Izakayas of Awa-Ikeda 2.5 h

  Ikeda is the only settlement in the municipality with real nightlife: a handful of izakayas and neighbourhood bars around the station, almost all closing early and without an English menu.

• Kazurabashi Yumebutai 0.75 h

  The complex next to the vine bridge car park, with a local produce market and places to eat: the most practical spot to buy Iya soba, konjac, tea and vine basketry in a single stop.

• Miyoshi Nagayoshi warrior parade 3.5 h only the first weekend of November

  On the first weekend of November, a parade of armour and a matchlock demonstration in the birthplace of Miyoshi Nagayoshi, the warlord some claim as the unifier who came before Nobunaga.

• Peeing Boy Statue 0.5 h

  A statue perched on a rocky outcrop above a roughly 200-meter drop, one of the most photographed viewpoints in the valley.

• Scarecrow workshop 1.75 h booking

  A small 'scarecrow school' where you learn the wooden frame, the stuffing and the sewing of the face. It depends on the maker's availability, so confirm with the tourist office.

• SUP and kayaking on the Ikeda reservoir 3 h booking

  Flat water on the dam lake, with paddle boarding, canoeing and an instructor: the alternative when children are below the minimum age for the rapids.

• The secret station at Tsubojiri 1.5 h

  One of Japan's most famous end-of-the-world stations: no access road, at the bottom of a ravine, with a compulsory switchback and the only entirely wooden station building JR Shikoku has left. You reach it on foot along a path of about 25 minutes.

• The udatsu street of Awa-Ikeda 1.25 h

  Udatsu are raised firewalls between houses, a mark of the wealth of the 19th-century tobacco merchants. Ikeda keeps a stretch of facades with udatsu next to the tobacco house-museum.

• The Yamashiro yokai trail 1.75 h

  The valley is dotted with wooden figures of local monsters and a stele dedicated to the Konaki-jiji, the old man who cries like a baby, born here and popularised by Mizuki Shigeru. The legends began as warnings to keep children away from ravines and rivers.

• Tsurugi - Jirogyu traverse 6 h

  An open ridge between the two highest peaks of the massif, with a sea of clouds at dawn. It demands self-sufficiency: there are no shops, mobile coverage is patchy and the tracks close in rain.

What only happens on specific dates

• Shikoku Sake Festival the last Saturday of February
• Kamishiro Odori of Nishi-Iya day 25 of the 6th lunar month
• Ikeda Awa Odori Festival 14-16 Aug
• Fusuma karakuri of Iya two weekends in October
• Nishi-Awa fireworks one Saturday in mid-November
• Miyoshi Nagayoshi warrior parade the first weekend of November

Chains well with

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