Experience the best of Ito

Ito lies on Sagami Bay on the east coast of the Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka Prefecture, a hot-spring resort that has been bathing visitors for centuries and has hot water bubbling from many springs. A small river runs through the town, lined with inns, bathhouses and foot baths, and the peninsula's low volcanic hills rise behind.

In 1604 the English navigator William Adams, known in Japan as Miura Anjin, helped to build one of the first Western-style ships in Japan here, at the shogun's order, and a memorial park and an annual festival recall him. South of town the Jogasaki Coast is a rugged lava shore of cliffs and headlands crossed by a suspension bridge over a narrow inlet, and inland the grassy cone of Mount Omuro rises.

The Izu coast provides fresh fish, among them kinmedai, a red-eyed snapper simmered in soy sauce, and dried horse mackerel, which is grilled for breakfast. Early-flowering Kawazu cherry trees bloom in the Kawazu valley, a drive to the south, from February, long before cherry blossom elsewhere. Summers are warm and the sea is busy with swimmers.