How to Spend a Perfect Day in Matsushima with Travel Map

Matsushima
Check Point
・One of the Three Most Viewed Places in Japan

・Island tour boat

・Zuiganji Temple, the family temple of the Date clan and a national treasure

Matsushima, one of the Three Most Scenic Spots of Japan, is a seaside town with about 260 islands. You can see the islands by taking a sightseeing boat. Zuiganji Temple, the family temple of the Date clan, is designated as a national treasure and its beautiful structure is a must-see. We will also introduce other islands that you can visit, such as Oshima, which Matsuo Basho visited, and Fukuurajima, a natural park.

 ★★★★★

 5 h 30

 2900 yen

 ★★★★★


For information on sightseeing in Sendai, please click here.



Itinerary Map

Navigation

【Start】
①Matsushimakaigan Station

★Route time required:10 min
When you come out onto the street from the station, turn left and walk along the street until you see the pier on your right.

②Matsushima Sightseeing Cruise

★Route time required:5 min
When you get off the boat, go to the right and you will see a temple on the cliff.

③Godaido of Zuiganji Temple

★Route time required:10 min
After leaving the temple, turn right and follow the road along the sea towards the red bridge you can see ahead on the right. When you enter the Cafe Bayland building just before the bridge, there is a ticket machine on your left to cross the bridge. Pay 200 yen here and cross the bridge.

④Fukuurajima

★Route time required:15 min
Return the way you came and go back to the tourist boat dock. From there, look inland and you will see a gate, so go through it.

⑤Zuiganji Temple

★Route time required:a few minutes
When you leave Zuiganji Temple, go right and you will see the next temple on your right.

⑥Entsuin

★Route time required:a few minutes
After leaving Entsuin Temple, go right, then turn left and you will see the mound immediately on your left.

⑦Hiyokuzuka

★Route time required:a few minutes
Return to Entsuin Street and go left, and you will find the temple at the end.

⑧Tenrinin Temple

★Route time required:20 min
When you leave the temple, go down the road in front of you and you will come back to the road you started on, so turn right and go back to the station. Once you get back to the station, go straight and turn left at the intersection. Continue along the road and you will see the Miyagi Prefecture Matsushima Park Management Office on your left. Go further from the entrance to the right of it and you will see the bridge.

⑨Ojima

★Route time required:10 min
Return to the station by the way you came.

【Goal】
Matsushimakaigan Station


Click the square mark on the top left of the map to see a list of tourist spots. If you open the enlarge button on the top right corner on your smartphone, this model course will be displayed on Google Maps along with its location information. You can also quickly return to this map from the table of contents in the sidebar (if using a smartphone, select “Go to table of contents” from the menu at the bottom of the screen).


①Matsushimakaigan Station

Be careful not to get off at Matsushima Station, as it will be quite a distance.


★Route time required:10 min

When you come out onto the street from the station, turn left and walk along the street until you see the pier on your right.


②Matsushima Sightseeing Cruise

Matsushima Sightseeing Cruise

Time required : 50 min

Admission fee:1500 yen

Operating hours: 9 am – 4 pm, departures every hour
(The last flight departs at 3 pm in winter)

Closed: When the weather is bad

This is a sightseeing boat that allows you to see more than 30 of the approximately 260 islands floating in Matsushima Bay. There is a ticket booth at the dock where you can purchase your ticket, but you may also find them on the street when you get off at Matsushima Kaigan Station. Normally you sit in the unreserved seats on the first floor, but if you pay an additional 600 yen on the boat you can sit in the unreserved seats on the second floor. An audio guide will introduce you to the islands, but the left and right are separated, so it is recommended to view them from the rear deck.

Among the many islands, Niojima, which looks like a statue of Nio sitting with a cigar in its mouth, is particularly famous.

Niojima


It is also famous for Bell Island, which has four holes and the sound it makes when the waves crash against them resembles the sound of bells.

Bell Island


There is Sengan Island, and when Date Masamune visited the island he joked, “I will give 1,000 kan of coins to anyone who can carry this island to my mansion.”

Sengan Island


★Route time required:5 min

When you get off the boat, go to the right and you will see a temple on the cliff.


③Godaido of Zuiganji Temple

Godaido of Zuiganji Temple

Time required : 15 min

Admission fee:0 yen

Opening hour:8h30 am – 16h30 pm

Close:No

This temple is a symbol of Matsushima and is said to be a power spot for matchmaking. Its name comes from the fact that Jikaku Daishi Ennin placed the statues of the Five Great Kings on the site of Bishamon-do, a national important cultural property built by Sakanoue no Tamuramaro. There are carvings of the zodiac animals on four walls of the temple, and it’s recommended to find your own zodiac animal. There is also a great view from here, and you can see the islands of Matsushima. You will need to cross a bridge to get to this temple, but the footing has been made difficult to cross in order to brace yourself before entering the sacred area.

The difficult bridge at Matsushima Godaido


★Route time required:10 min

After leaving the temple, turn right and follow the road along the sea towards the red bridge you can see ahead on the right. When you enter the Cafe Bayland building just before the bridge, there is a ticket machine on your left to cross the bridge. Pay 200 yen here and cross the bridge.


④Fukuurajima

Fukuurajima

Time required : 40 min

Admission fee:200 yen

Opening hour:8h30 am – 5 pm
(until 4h30 November – February)

Close:No

One of the islands in Matsushima, it is used as a prefectural natural park covering an area of ​​6 hectares. Fukuura Bridge in front of the island is 252 meters long and is also known as a power spot for good relationships as a bridge of encounters. The island has been left in its natural state, but there are also teahouses and Bentendo temples, and there are vantage points of Matsushima Bay here and there.


★Route time required:15 min

Return the way you came and go back to the tourist boat dock. From there, look inland and you will see a gate, so go through it.


⑤Zuiganji Temple

Zuiganji Temple

Time required : 1h

Opening hour:8h30 am

Closing time

January3h30 pm
February4 pm
March4h30 pm
April – September5 pm
October4h30 pm
November4 pm
December3h30 pm

Close:No

The family temple of the Date clan, the main hall is designated as a national treasure, and is said to be one of the four temple corridors, along with Chusonji Temple and Motsuji Temple in Iwate Prefecture, and Risshakuji Temple in Yamagata Prefecture. Originally, there was a temple built by Jikaku Daishi Ennin, just like the Matsushima Godaido mentioned above, but when it fell into decline, Date Masamune restored it. During the restoration, Masamune gathered materials from Kumano in Kishu, which has been called the “Land of Pure Land” since the Heian period, and invited 130 master craftsmen from the Kinki region to rebuild it.

From the tourist boat pier, past the gate there is a straight path to the temple, and on the right you can see the Cave Ruins, a site where holes were dug into the rocks to house Buddhist statues and stone monuments as memorial sites from the Kamakura to Edo periods.

 the Cave Ruins


Inside is a rare eel mound, a memorial for eels, which is rare even in Japan.

a memorial for eels

If you pay the entrance fee at the end of the approach and go to the right, you will find a museum called Seiryu-den, which displays paintings, tea utensils, sliding door paintings, armor, etc. related to the Date clan. If you go up to the main hall, you can tour 10 rooms including the Peacock Room with its gold-decorated sliding doors that exude the brilliance of Momoyama culture.


★Route time required:a few minutes

When you leave Zuiganji Temple, go right and you will see the next temple on your right.


⑥Entsuin

Entsuin

Time required : 30 min

Admission fee:500 yen

Opening hour:9 am – 4 pm
(until 3h30 pm December – March)

Close:No

This is the mausoleum where Date Mitsumune, the grandson of Date Masamune, rests. It was once called the Rose Temple because of the many roses that bloomed there, but is now known as the Moss Temple, and it does have a rose garden. The Sankeiden shrine where Mitsumune rests features the oldest Western roses in Japan, as well as diamonds, hearts, and other Western motifs, and the colors are displayed in good condition because it is made of coral.

The gardens are also popular, and one of them, the Ungai Tenchi Garden, depicts Matsushima Bay and the islands floating in it.

the Ungai Tenchi Garden

It is also lit up in the fall, making it a popular tourist spot during the autumn foliage season.


★Route time required:a few minutes

After leaving Entsuin Temple, go right, then turn left and you will see the mound immediately on your left.


⑦Hiyokuzuka

Hiyokuzuka

Time required : 5 min

This is a mound left behind by a sad story about a couple.

The story is as below.

A man became friends with a merchant while traveling and decided to marry each other’s children. When the man returned to Matsushima, his son had already died, and the merchant’s daughter came to marry him, unaware of this. The man said that he no longer had a son and therefore did not need a wife, but the daughter continued to marry him and devoted herself to her parents-in-law. After the death of her parents-in-law, she became a nun and dedicated herself to offering prayers for the soul of her husband whom she had never met.


★Route time required:a few minutes

Return to Entsuin Street and go left, and you will find the temple at the end.


⑧Tenrinin Temple

Tenrinin Temple

Time required : 10 min

Admission fee:0 yen

Opening hour:8 am – 5 pm

Close:No

This is the temple where Date Masamune’s eldest daughter, Princess Iroha, rests. Masamune had thought that he would give birth to a boy, so he had the name Goroha prepared in advance, but since the baby was a girl, he kept the characters the same but changed the pronunciation to Iroha, which is how the name came to be. She was the wife of Matsudaira Tadateru, the sixth son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, but he lost his land as a result of rebelling against Ieyasu, so they divorced and she returned to Sendai to enter the Buddhist priesthood. Unlike the previous two temples, this is not a tourist temple, but it is famous as a cat temple.


★Route time required:20 min

When you leave the temple, go down the road in front of you and you will come back to the road you started on, so turn right and go back to the station. Once you get back to the station, go straight and turn left at the intersection. Continue along the road and you will see the Miyagi Prefecture Matsushima Park Management Office on your left. Go further from the entrance to the right of it and you will see the bridge.


⑨Ojima

Ojima

Time required : 30 min

Admission fee:0 yen

This is the third Matsushima island you can land on, in addition to Godaido and Fukuurajima. There used to be 108 caves on the island, but now only about 50 remain, including Buddhist statues and stone towers. During the Edo period, it was a sacred place, and stone monuments stand all over the island.

Oshima Cave

The red Togetsukyo Bridge, which one crosses when landing on the island, is thought to be a bridge that cuts off ties with the mundane world on mainland, and is also said to be a bridge that cuts off bad ties. In fact, it is said that the high priest Kenbutsu Shonin trained on the island for 12 years, while Raiken trained for 22 years, without ever leaving the island. Kenbutsu Shonin is said to have read approximately 60,000 copies of the Lotus Sutra, and the remains of this reading remain as the Kenbutsu Hall.

Matsuo Basho and his disciple Sora also visited this place, and the poems they wrote there are left as stone monuments. The view from here is also good, and you can see the town of Matsushima, the sea, and the island from a different angle.

Islands seen from Oshima


★Route time required:10 min

Return to the station by the way you came.



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