Dogashima

Friday, June 4, 2010

A few weeks ago the four of us spent the day in Dogashima, on the west coast of the Izu peninsula, on the Suruga Bay (not far from Shimoda, the beach town on the east coast, the Pacific Ocean side). There are some truly beautiful cliffs and sea caves there. The boys were even impressed...
To get there: first there's the 2.5-hr express train ride from Tokyo (JR Tokaido line from Shinagawa station, nonstop through Atami) to Shimoda station (station name is actually Izukyushimoda, important if you're sorting routes using Hyperdia.com). From there we hopped onto the No. 5 bus, which leaves twice an hour, I think, and takes about 50 minutes (you can buy tickets from a counter in the station), traveling along mountain roads, past rice paddies and through a few small villages, very scenic and surprisingly pleasant for a bus journey (the boys had water, snacks and their DS'es, of course, otherwise, I'd be singing a different tune I'm sure).

There's a causeway linking the mainland to one of the little offshore islands, and in low tide it's a bridge, and a place to find hermit crabs, etc. Sadly our timing was off for that, so we settled for a brief trail walk and the 20-min sightseeing cruise. Totally worth it, for the view and the thrill. One sea cave had a natural skylight, letting the sun shine in from overhead -- see last photo below..
If you've got a weekend in Shimoda already planned and can steal away for that extra day, go! We arrived in Dogashima around 2:30pm on the Friday and were still back in Shimoda in time for dinner.