Hyogo

The hot-spring town on the Sea of Japan side is built along a willow-lined canal, and it is organised around the idea that the whole town is one inn. Guests change into a cotton yukata and wooden sandals at their lodging and then walk between seven separate public bathhouses through the evening, each with its own character, with the pass to enter them included in the stay.

It is a completely different proposition from a resort where you bathe in your own hotel, and it is the single best reason to come this far north. Book the accommodation rather than a day trip — the town is at its best after dark when the lanterns are on and the streets are full of people in slippers — and pace yourself across three or four baths rather than trying to complete the set. Crab season fills the inns months ahead, so decide early.

Three days, because Hyogo is three prefectures pretending to be one: the Kobe waterfront on the Inland Sea, Himeji's castle in the middle, and the Sea of Japan coast at Kinosaki in the far north. Kobe to Himeji is about forty minutes; Kobe to Kinosaki is around two and a half hours over the mountains.

The clean itinerary is Kobe for a night, Himeji for a day on the way through, and Kinosaki for a night. Add Awaji Island, reached by a long suspension bridge from Kobe, if you have a car and a fourth day.

Himeji deserves more than the two hours most people give it — the keep is the finest surviving castle in Japan and the queue to climb it in peak season is substantial. Going first thing is the whole difference between a good visit and a slow shuffle up six floors of stairs.

Most Japanese castle keeps are twentieth-century reconstructions, often in concrete. The one in the middle of this prefecture is not: it came through the demolitions of the nineteenth century and the bombing of the twentieth intact, so the white plaster, the timber floors and the deliberately confusing spiral of the approach are the sixteenth-century work rather than a modern impression of it.

That is worth more of your day than most people give it. The approach is designed to slow and expose an attacker, and walking it while noticing the angles, the loopholes and the dead ends is the visit — the interior is a series of steep wooden staircases with almost nothing displayed. Go at opening. In peak season the queue for the keep alone can run to an hour, and the climb inside is one-way with no overtaking, so a late arrival is a slow shuffle rather than a look around.

The Sanyo Shinkansen puts Shin-Kobe about three hours from Tokyo and Himeji fifteen minutes beyond it; Kobe Airport sits on an island with a rail link, and Itami handles most domestic flights for the region. Along the south coast, JR and Hanshin and Hankyu all run parallel between Osaka and Kobe, so departures are constant. Getting north is the slow part — the Kinosaki limited express takes about two and a half hours from Osaka — but it is direct, and Kinosaki is designed to be walked in slippers once you arrive. Takeda Castle needs the Bantan line and a climb. Awaji Island requires a bus or car over the bridge.

Kinosaki in the crab season, roughly November to March, is the best time to be there and the hardest to book — the inns fill months ahead and prices reflect it. That is a warning about planning rather than about going.

Himeji in cherry blossom season is beautiful and at capacity; the queue for the keep can be over an hour. Kobe has no bad season, though August is humid. The genuinely weak window is late summer on the north coast, when the crab is out of season, the sea is warm and unremarkable, and the hot-spring town is at its least appealing.

Kobe beef is Tajima cattle raised in this prefecture and certified under a narrow standard, so the steakhouses in Sannomiya charge accordingly; the same bloodline underpins Matsusaka and Omi. Nada, on Kobe's eastern edge, produces more sake than any other district in Japan, using hard Miyamizu water, and several breweries run free museums. Akashi-yaki are soft egg-rich octopus dumplings dipped in broth rather than sauce — the ancestor of takoyaki. Izushi in the north serves soba in small dishes stacked five at a time, and snow crab arrives at Kinosaki from November.

The two coasts diverge sharply in winter: Kobe stays mild at around 9°C in January with almost no snow, while Kinosaki and the northern valleys get regular falls, which is exactly when people go — snow crab season runs from early November to late March and the town is fully booked through it. Summers are hot and humid in the south, above 33°C. Himeji Castle's cherry blossoms open in early April and the grounds are crowded for about ten days. Takeda Castle's cloud sea forms on cold clear autumn mornings from late September to early December. Kobe's Luminarie lights run in December.

Trains for the southern corridor, which is one of the busiest rail lines in the country — Kobe, Akashi and Himeji are all on it and services run constantly. Kinosaki is a limited express north from Kyoto or Osaka, and the town itself is walkable in the wooden clogs the inns hand out.

A car matters for Awaji Island, the northern coast beyond Kinosaki, and the inland valleys around Takeda, where the castle ruin above the sea of cloud sits at the end of a climb from a small station. If your trip is the three headline places, take the train; if it includes the island or the north coast, hire something.

A first visit is Himeji and Kobe. The castle is the reason — a complete original hilltop fortress in white plaster, unburned and unbombed, with the interior climb intact — and Kobe an hour away gives you a port city with a hillside of Western merchant houses, a harbour and the best beef in the country served in restaurants that will explain the grading to you.

A second visit is Kinosaki, in winter, for the crab. The town is a river lined with willows and seven public bathhouses, and the custom is to stay in an inn, change into a yukata and wooden clogs, and spend the evening walking between the baths. It is the most complete hot-spring town experience in western Japan and it is two and a half hours from Kobe over the mountains.