Karatsu

Kyushu, Japan · Town / small city, Sea / Beach

A coastal city in Saga, forty-three kilometres from Fukuoka, that hardly anyone puts on the route. It has one of the thirty-three float festivals UNESCO inscribed in 2016 — fourteen lacquer pieces over seven metres tall that come out from 2 to 4 November; the only one of Japan's three great pine groves with Special Place of Scenic Beauty status, and with a train stop of its own; a castle whose keep did not exist until 1966; the ground from which Hideyoshi launched the invasion of Korea, now a Special Historic Site; a morning market open on all three hundred and sixty-four days that are not New Year; and seven basalt caves a boat goes into if the sea allows. Two days: one for the town and the pine grove, another for Yobuko, the caves and Nagoya castle.

The essentials

Getting there

Train — La estación de referencia es JR Karatsu. La asociación de turismo recomienda llegar desde Fukuoka combinando el metro con la línea JR Chikuhi y lo anuncia como la opción barata y rápida, pero no publica los minutos en texto: sus esquemas de acceso son imágenes. El dato que sí tenemos comprobado es de la ficha de Iki de esta misma guía, que al explicar sus ferris sitúa el puerto de Karatsu Higashi a una hora y veinte en tren desde Fukuoka. Dentro, el castillo está a veinte minutos a pie de la estación o siete en coche, y el pinar tiene parada propia, Nijinomatsubara, en la misma línea Chikuhi. Para Yobuko y las cuevas de Nanatsugama se sale en autobús de la terminal de Oteguchi: treinta minutos a Yobuko, y treinta y cuatro a la parada de Nanatsugama, que deja media hora de caminata hasta el sitio. Al castillo de Nagoya no se ha podido verificar el acceso en transporte público.

Frequently asked questions about Karatsu

What to do in Karatsu: 7 activities

• Karatsu Kunchi: fourteen floats of lacquer and paper 6 h must-see only 2-4 November

  From 2 to 4 November, and it is the autumn festival of Karatsu shrine. Fourteen floats, from the first — the red lion of the Katana-machi quarter — to the fourteenth, the Shippomaru. And they are not wooden: they are lacquerware. Japanese paper pasted in many layers with hemp cloth over it and a lacquer finish, the technique called ikkanbari; over seven metres tall and two to three tonnes each. The Agency for Cultural Affairs designated the festival an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property on 28 January 1980, under customs and manners, and in 2016 it entered the UNESCO list within the float-festival group: thirty-three in all, inscribed as an extension of two already listed since 2009, Kyoto's Gion and the Hitachi Furyumono. The floats themselves are also an Important Tangible Folk Cultural Property of Saga Prefecture, since 23 January 1958, and this comes from the city because the tourism site gets it wrong on one of its pages. Of the oldest float it is said that it was made by someone returning from a pilgrimage to Ise who had seen Kyoto's Gion. 2026 times: the eve on the 2nd from 19:00 to 21:30, when the Katana-machi float is pulled out from Oteguchi at seven; the 3rd from 9:30 to 16:30 and the 4th from 10:00 to 16:40. There is no paid seating, and the tourism association itself warns that anything saying otherwise is out of date. They say over half a million people come, without citing a source.

• Nagoya: the castle from which Hideyoshi invaded Korea 2.5 h must-see

  The invasion of Korea set out from here. Hideyoshi had this castle built as the base for the Bunroku and Keicho campaigns, starting in 1591 with the system of parcelling the work out among the lords: the prefectural museum says it was finished in a few months, and the two pages of the local tourism council disagree on whether it was five or six. From the outbreak of hostilities in 1592 until Hideyoshi died and the lords withdrew, seven years passed. Seventeen hectares, Japan's second largest castle after Osaka's at the time, with more than a hundred and thirty lords' camps around it and over two hundred thousand people gathered, a figure the source gives with an «it is said». Not one building survives: it was pulled down in early Edo and the walls were deliberately broken down. The keep was five storeys and seven levels, and what remains is its base with sixteen foundation stones, rebuilt with imitation stone over an earth mound. The site is a nationally designated Special Historic Site under the name «ruins of Nagoya castle and the camps», meaning the castle and twenty-three camps; it became a Historic Site in 1926 and Special in 1955, though only the year is published for the second. The prefectural museum opens 9:00 to 17:00, closes Mondays — or the next working day if that is a holiday — 29 to 31 December and 1 to 3 January, and admission is free except for special exhibitions. The grounds are not charged either, but from university age up they ask for a hundred yen towards cleaning. The round trip from the museum to the main enclosure and back is thirty to forty minutes.

• Niji no Matsubara, the only one of the three great groves with special status 1.5 h must-see

  A black pine grove planted as a windbreak and sea defence to protect newly reclaimed rice fields, and it was planted by the same man who raised the castle, Terasawa Hirotaka; the source tells it as tradition, with an «it is said», and gives no planting year. The measurements do not match between the two official sources: the city says four hundred to seven hundred metres wide and a little over four kilometres long, while the tourism association says four and a half kilometres by some five hundred metres. The city prevails. The million pines in circulation is said only by the association, and said with an «it is said»: the city publishes no tree count at all. What is dated, to the day, is the protection: a Place of Scenic Beauty since 22 August 1926 and a Special Place of Scenic Beauty since 24 March 1955. And the fact that really sets it apart: it is counted among Japan's three great pine groves along with Miho and Kehi, and it is the only one of the three with the special designation. Walking it is free and Nijinomatsubara station is right there.

• Karatsu castle, which had no keep until 1966 1.5 h

  The castle that had no keep, and the city says so plainly: when it was built there was no keep, and the one standing was put up in 1966 as a cultural and tourist facility, on the Edo-period stone base that remained. The city calls it a mogi-tenshu, a mock keep, and uses neither «rebuilt» nor «restored», which is what tends to get written elsewhere. It was raised by Terasawa Hirotaka, the domain's first lord, and the date long taken as settled — 1602 to 1608, seven years of work — the city now presents as a theory, because there are signs of an earlier castle on the same spot. To get up there are two hundred and twenty-two stone steps, or a lift at a hundred yen each way, fifty for schoolchildren and free for preschoolers and over-seventies, running 9:00 to 17:00. The keep opens 9:00 to 17:00 with last entry at 16:40 and closes 29 to 31 December; five hundred yen general and two hundred and fifty for schoolchildren, with the ground and first floors free and the second to fifth paid.

• Nanatsugama: seven caves in basalt, and a boat if the sea allows 2 h

  Seven sea caves cut by wave action into columnar basalt, a nationally designated natural monument. The largest has a three-metre mouth and runs a hundred and ten metres deep, and depending on the sea the boat goes inside. Looking at it from above is free. The boat is the Ikamaru, it leaves from Yobuko harbour, takes forty minutes and sails hourly from 9:30 to 16:30, with the same timetable from March to October as from November to February. The price does not match between the two sources: the tourism association says two thousand yen for adults and a thousand for children, and the operator says two thousand two hundred and one thousand one hundred. The operator prevails, since it is the one charging. One small child goes free per adult and there is a discount from ten people. If the sea is rough it does not sail; rain makes no difference unless it is torrential. What nobody publishes is whether you get your money back, or whether in rough seas the boat enters the cave or stays outside looking at it. From April to November it closes no days; from December to March it does, and you have to check its calendar. On 1 January it does not run. By land it is thirty-four minutes by bus from Oteguchi and then half an hour on foot.

• The float museum, which closes when they come out 1 h

  Where the fourteen floats are kept on the other three hundred and sixty-two days of the year. And it comes with two warnings the guidebooks do not carry. First: since 1 October 2021 the museum is not in its own building — it is temporarily housed in the grounds of the Alpino community centre, in the Shinko district, because its own building is being rebuilt; neither the city nor the tourism association publishes when the new one opens, so it is worth phoning ahead. Second, and this is the good one: it closes on 3 and 4 November, precisely because on those days the floats are out in the street. It opens 9:00 to 17:00 with last entry at 16:40 and also closes 29 to 31 December. Three hundred and ten yen general and a hundred and fifty for primary and junior-high pupils, free below that age, with twenty per cent off from twenty people.

• Yobuko morning market and the superlative nobody signs 1.5 h

  Every day of the year except 1 January, from 7:30 to 12:00, on the market street east of Yobuko harbour, closed to traffic. How many stalls there are is a figure that barely exists: the tourism association does not publish it, and the market itself says it only in the hidden description of its website and not in the text you can read — some forty on weekdays and some sixty on holidays. Each stall also sets its own opening time. On sale: fish and shellfish, dried goods, vegetables, fruit, pickles, cut flowers, sweets and pottery. And one thing worth knowing because the opposite circulates: neither the tourism association nor the market itself says anywhere that this is one of Japan's three great morning markets. That line comes from the guidebooks, not from the sources. Parking: twenty-nine free spaces and a hundred and twenty-eight paid at a hundred yen an hour. Thirty minutes by bus from the Oteguchi terminal and one minute on foot.

What only happens on specific dates

• Karatsu Kunchi: fourteen floats of lacquer and paper 2-4 November

Chains well with

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