9 Places To Visit In Atami

Show on map

Filter (9)
Temple (2)
Beach (1)
Historical Site (1)
Hot Spring (1)

1. Atami Onsen

0 km from city center

Hot Spring

A hot spring town since the eighth century, whose name means hot ocean, and which the shinkansen turned into a mass destination in 1964. The mistake visitors make is assuming they can walk into a hotel for a day soak: hotels often refuse day bathers when they are busy with overnight guests. Head for a dedicated day-use bathhouse instead, and phone ahead.

Top Attraction

1 km from city center

Museum

A hillside museum holding three National Treasures, entered through a long series of escalators bored into the rock and opening onto a lobby with a 180-degree view over Sagami Bay. Two thousand yen, closed Thursdays. Its most famous piece, Ogata Korin's Red and White Plum Blossoms, is shown for only a short window each year around February, so check before travelling for it.

Top Attraction

1 km from city center

Temple

The reason to come is the camphor tree behind the hall: over two thousand years old, with a trunk some twenty-four metres around, and a designated National Natural Monument. Local tradition says one circuit of it adds a year to your life. Free, lit in the evenings, and three minutes by train from Atami station, which also puts you near the plum garden.

1 km from city center

Garden & Park

Four hundred and sixty-nine plum trees across sixty varieties, deliberately planted early, mid and late season so something is in flower across the whole January to early March window. Free except during the two festivals, when timed entry applies. The part people miss is autumn: around 380 maples here turn in late November, the latest colour in Japan.

0 km from city center

Historical Site

A 1919 private villa, later a ryokan, where Tanizaki, Dazai and Shiga Naoya all stayed, now kept as a city cultural property. The interest is the Taisho-era mixing of Japanese and Western rooms around a single garden. Six hundred and ten yen, closed Wednesdays. It is the best value stop in Atami and takes about an hour.

1 km from city center

Landmark

Worth knowing before you go: there was never a castle here. This one went up in 1959 as a tourist attraction during the post-war domestic travel boom, styled after Azuchi-Momoyama architecture. What it does have is a 360-degree deck over the bay and the Izu peninsula, a samurai armour collection and a foot bath at 120 metres. Reached by ropeway from Korakuen.

7. Atami Sun Beach

1 km from city center

Beach

A palm-lined town beach of imported white sand, and the first beach in Japan given a permanent lighting design, which is the actual reason to come: it is lit every night from sunset until ten, all year. Swimming season is far narrower, roughly the second week of July to the end of August. Twenty minutes on foot from the station.

11 km from city center

Island

Shizuoka's only inhabited offshore island, four kilometres around with a couple of hundred residents, thirty minutes out by high-speed ferry and warm enough for bougainvillea. Around 2,900 yen return. One thing to plan around: the island's main facilities close on Thursdays and the combination tickets are not sold that day, so a Thursday trip is a ferry and a walk.

2 km from city center

Temple

A shrine recorded on this site by 594, where Minamoto no Yoritomo worshipped in exile and eloped with Hojo Masako, an episode that fed directly into the founding of the Kamakura shogunate. Free. Take the bus from stand four at Atami station and climb the 189 steps from the stop; drivers can park beside the shrine and skip them entirely.