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Experience the best of Kumamoto

Kumamoto is the main city of central Kyushu, known for its black-walled castle, a classical garden, hot springs and the vast volcanic caldera of Mount Aso.

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Kumamoto stands on the plain of central Kyushu, where springwater from the Aso mountains feeds the rivers. Its castle, raised in the early 1600s by the warlord Kato Kiyomasa, has black timber walls and curving stone ramparts built to be hard to climb. Suizenji Jojuen, a garden laid out in the seventeenth century, shapes a miniature of the Tokaido road around a pond, with a small hill standing for Mount Fuji.

Mount Aso, east of the city, has one of the largest calderas in the world, a vast bowl of grassland, farms and towns around smoking central cones. Kurokawa Onsen is a hot-spring village among trees in a valley to the north-east. The Amakusa islands, linked to the mainland by bridges, have dolphins offshore and chapels from the region's Christian history. Kumamon, the prefecture's black bear mascot, appears on everything from buses to biscuits.

Basashi, thinly sliced raw horse meat, is the prefecture's most unusual speciality, and Kumamoto ramen comes in a pork-bone broth with fried garlic. Karashi renkon, lotus root stuffed with mustard, is also local. Cherry blossom arrives in late March, the rainy season falls in June and July, and autumn is clear.

  • Free cancellation on 80% of experiences
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Top experiences in Kumamoto

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Day trips from Kumamoto

13

Guided tours in Kumamoto

34

Food and drink experiences in Kumamoto

8

Shore excursions from Kumamoto

5

Go beyond Kumamoto

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Special offers near Kumamoto

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