Ehime is most commonly visited for Dogo Onsen and Matsuyama Castle, both of which deserve their reputations. But the prefecture holds a second layer of experiences that most international visitors never encounter — a preserved castle town along a river that supports a style of accommodation found nowhere else in Japan, a coastal scenic train that requires advance reservation and runs the tracks closest to the ocean surface in western Shikoku, a small island with an intact Meiji-era port that has changed almost nothing since merchant ships called there a century ago, and a remote copper mine area whose industrial history is woven into the regional identity. These are the destinations that reward the visitor who stays a day or two longer, or who comes to Ehime a second time already knowing the basics.
Ozu: The River Castle Town
Ozu sits approximately 50 kilometres southwest of Matsuyama along the Hiji River — a jade-green river that curves through a narrow valley between forested hills. The town developed as a castle settlement during the Edo period and accumulated a merchant culture wealthy enough to build refined townhouses and villas along the river and in the streets behind the embankment. The castle that gives the town its skyline was disassembled in the Meiji era when it became surplus to the new state’s requirements, then meticulously reconstructed between 2004 and 2006 using traditional carpentry methods and period-accurate materials. It is among the most careful castle reconstructions in Japan, and the riverside position — on a promontory above the bend where the Hiji River turns — makes it more picturesque than most.
Garyu Sanso Villa
Of everything in Ozu, Garyu Sanso repays the most careful attention. This Meiji-era private villa was built between 1907 and 1908 by a wealthy local merchant named Torajiro Kochi as a retirement home and aesthetic retreat. The construction took four years and involved craftsmen brought from across the region. The result is a building that architects and carpenters still visit to study: the joinery throughout is exceptional, the integration of interior space with the sloped garden below and the river visible through gaps in the surrounding trees is handled with unusual sophistication, and the connecting corridor between the main and secondary buildings follows a deliberate zigzag that controls the revelation of different views and spaces.
Admission is ¥550. The villa is open daily. The best time to visit is the hour before the site closes in the late afternoon, when tour groups have departed and the light through the shoji screens turns warm. Allow 45 to 60 minutes.
Funaya Boathouse Accommodation
The funaya are the distinctive river-edge structures that define Ozu’s character along the Hiji River embankment. Originally built as combined boathouse and storage facilities, they extend directly into the river on wooden pilings, with the lower portion serving as a berth for flat-bottomed boats and the upper portion functioning as living and storage space. A small number have been carefully converted into accommodation where guests sleep in rooms whose sliding doors open directly over the river surface.
The experience of staying in a funaya is specific to Ozu — this style of waterfront accommodation exists in very few other locations in Japan. Waking at dawn to the river directly below your room, watching the mist move along the valley, is the kind of encounter with a Japanese landscape that does not translate into photographs but stays in memory with unusual vividness. Rates typically run from ¥20,000 to ¥40,000 per person including dinner and breakfast. Advance reservation is necessary; the supply of funaya accommodation is limited to a handful of properties.
In summer, Ozu also operates ukai — cormorant fishing performed by lamplight on the river by fishermen using trained birds. The spectacle is ancient and genuinely extraordinary: firelit wooden boats, trained cormorants on leashes, the dark river surface catching the flame. Viewing seats on the riverbank and on observation boats are bookable through the Ozu tourism office.
Iyonada Monogatari: Coastal Scenic Train
The Iyonada Monogatari is a reservation-required tourist train operated by JR Shikoku on the Yosan Line between Matsuyama and Uwajima. It runs on weekends and selected weekdays in three route variants, each covering a different section of the coast. The train’s interior uses local cypress and zelkova wood, handmade ceramics, and woven textiles from producers along the Seto coastline. Seats face outward toward the sea, and food and beverages served during the journey are sourced from farms and producers whose landscapes pass outside the window.
The standout feature of the route is the stretch between Iyo-Nagahama and Shimonada where the track runs at almost sea level along the outer edge of the Ehime coastline. There are no barriers or embankments between the tracks and the ocean at this point — only the narrow gravel shoulder and then the water. On a clear day, the view from the train window is simply the Seto Sea at close range, with small islands floating in the middle distance and the distant mountains of Hiroshima Prefecture visible on the far shore. This section is known among Japanese train enthusiasts as one of the most visually immediate ocean-rail experiences in the country.
Booking
Reservations open one month in advance through JR Shikoku’s website and major rail booking platforms. Weekend departures sell out within the first day or two of the booking window opening; weekday trips are somewhat easier to secure. The reservation fee is ¥800 on top of the standard fare for the distance. Without the scenic train reservation, the regular Yosan Line service covers the same coastal section on ordinary schedules, though the views from standard carriages are less deliberately framed.
Honjima Island: Preserved Port Town
Honjima is a small island in the central Seto Inland Sea, accessible by ferry from Marugame on the Kagawa Prefecture side (approximately 30 minutes, fare around ¥600). It is administratively part of Kagawa but sits close enough to Ehime’s island geography to be comfortably combined with a Shimanami or Seto Sea itinerary.
The main settlement, Honjima-cho, was a prosperous pilot town during the Edo period — ships navigating the Seto Sea’s complicated channels required local pilots, and the piloting profession generated significant wealth that was invested in merchant townhouses. The result is a compact preserved streetscape of white-walled plaster buildings and wooden merchant houses along the main harbour lane, largely unchanged in structure since the late Edo period. The island has no large museums, no tourist facilities of note, and essentially no visitors on most weekday mornings. It is the kind of place that rewards wandering rather than structured sightseeing.
Uwa Area: Mountain Towns and Living History
The Uwa basin in the southern part of Ehime Prefecture, centred on Seiyo City, is a high plateau surrounded by mountains that remained somewhat isolated from the prefecture’s coastal development. The town of Uwa itself preserves a concentration of Meiji-era buildings along its main commercial street — former merchant houses, a schoolhouse, and a church — collected within the Uwa Historical Museum (admission ¥400), which occupies several of the original structures.
The Uwa area also contains the Sightseeing Train Iyonada Monogatari’s southern terminus at Uwajima, where the historic Uwajima Castle — one of Japan’s twelve original castles — stands on a hilltop above the town. Unlike Matsuyama Castle’s more heavily visited hilltop, Uwajima’s castle is reached by a quieter path through cedar and bamboo groves, and the donjon interior at ¥200 entry is one of the most atmospheric original castle interiors in western Japan.
Practical Notes
Ozu is reached from Matsuyama by the JR Yosan Line in approximately 50 minutes (¥880). For the Iyonada Monogatari scenic train, the Matsuyama-to-Uwajima route passes through Ozu, making a logical sequence of the castle town visit and the scenic rail journey. Ferries to Honjima depart from Marugame, which is reached from Matsuyama by crossing to the Kagawa side via Iyotetsu bus or JR along the southern approach. Allow a full day for any serious Ozu visit if you include both the castle, Garyu Sanso, and funaya accommodation arrangements. A two-night stay in Ozu — one night in a funaya, one in a town-centre inn — is the minimum needed to experience the place rather than simply pass through it.