Experience the best of Fukuyama

Fukuyama is the second-largest city in Hiroshima Prefecture, built around a castle completed in the early 1620s beside the present railway station. The main keep was destroyed in the air raids of 1945 and rebuilt in 1966, and it holds a museum. The city is known for roses, planted by residents after the war, which fill the parks in a festival each May, and it is the centre of Japan's koto harp making.

Tomonoura, a harbour town on a headland south of the city, preserves a landscape of stone quays, tiled houses and narrow lanes, with a stone lantern at the harbour mouth that once served as a navigation mark. The director Hayao Miyazaki stayed here and drew on it for the film Ponyo. Boats leave for the small island of Sensuijima just offshore, and views stretch over the islands of the Seto Inland Sea.

The sea brings sea bream, octopus and shellfish to the table, and Tomonoura is known for a sweet herbal liqueur that has been made there for centuries. The Inland Sea climate is mild and dry, and late spring, when the roses open, is the most colourful time.