Experience the best of Fuji

Fuji is a city in Shizuoka Prefecture on the coast of Suruga Bay, at the southern foot of Mount Fuji. It takes its name from the mountain but is a separate place, a working town of paper mills and factories along the Tokaido corridor. The Tokaido Shinkansen stops at Shin-Fuji, where the volcano fills the window on clear days.

Tagonoura, the port, was praised by the eighth-century poet Yamabe no Akahito in the Manyoshu for its view of the snowy peak, and the beach and seawall still frame it. Yoshiwara, an old Tokaido post town now part of the city, appears in Hiroshige's famous prints of the road. Fujinomiya and its great shrine lie to the north-west, the Izu Peninsula to the east and Shizuoka city to the west.

Shirasu, tiny whitebait from Suruga Bay, are served boiled or raw over rice in Tagonoura, and tea is grown on the hills behind the city. The air is clearest from winter to early spring, when the white cone stands out against the sky, and summer haze often hides it.