Matsuyama travel guide

Top 10 sights in Matsuyama

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1. 

   1© Masoud Akbari · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Matsuyama Castle

   Matsuyama Castle is one of the twelve keeps surviving from the Edo period, and its connected keep, reached by chairlift or ropeway, is its finest feature. The Inland Sea is visible from the top.

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2. 

   2© Reggaeman · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Taisan-ji Temple

   Temple fifty-two of the pilgrimage, whose main hall of 1305 is a National Treasure — the largest such hall in Shikoku. It stands up a long wooded approach with several gates, and the walk in is much of the experience.

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3. 

   3© Reggaeman · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Yuzuki Castle

   The castle of the Kono clan, who ruled Iyo province for three hundred years from the fourteenth century. It is a rare surviving example of a moated residential castle with the samurai quarters excavated and rebuilt inside the earthworks, now a park beside Dogo Onsen.

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4. 

   4© Reggaeman · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Ishite-ji Temple

   Ishite-ji is the fifty-first temple of the Shikoku pilgrimage, with a national treasure Niō gate and a warren of cave halls. It is close enough to Dōgo Onsen to walk to, which makes it an easy taste of the pilgrimage.

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5. 

   5© Reggaeman · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Yasaka-ji Temple

   Temple forty-seven of the Shikoku pilgrimage, in the hills south of Matsuyama, founded by tradition in 701 in connection with the mountain ascetic En no Gyoja. Its name comes from the eight slopes cut to build the approach.

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6. 

   6© 日:Muramasa · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Jōdo-ji Temple

   Temple forty-nine of the pilgrimage, whose main hall of 1482 is an Important Cultural Property. It holds a wooden self-portrait statue of Kuya, the tenth-century monk who took the nembutsu into the streets — one of the very few images of him made from life.

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7. 

   7© Reggaeman · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Taihō-ji Temple

   A temple in Matsuyama whose main hall, built about 1200, is a National Treasure and one of the oldest wooden buildings in Shikoku. It is plain, low and unrestored in appearance, which is exactly why it matters.

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8. 

   8© 建園春秋 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Saka no Ue no Kumo Museum

   The Saka no Ue no Kumo Museum is a building by Tadao Ando on the theme of Shiba Ryōtarō's novel. It covers the Meiji era through the lives of its protagonists, who came from Matsuyama.

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9. 

   9© DVMG · CC BY 3.0

   Museum of Art, Ehime

   The prefectural art museum, opened in 1998 inside the grounds of Matsumoto's castle — Matsuyama's, rather — holding Japanese modern painting and a strong group of works by Yasui Sotaro and local artists, with the castle hill directly outside.

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10. 

    10© Reggaeman · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Jōruri-ji Temple

    Temple forty-six of the pilgrimage, a Shingon temple whose grounds hold a cluster of stones and statues that pilgrims touch in a set order for particular ailments. It is small, wooded and one of the quieter stops on the circuit.

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1. 

   1© 暗黒な方 (the Black One) · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Isaniwa Shrine

   Isaniwa Shrine is a Hachiman shrine at the top of 135 steps behind Dōgo Onsen, an important cultural property counted among the three great Hachiman buildings of Japan.

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2. 

   2© Tamago915 (talk) · CC BY-SA 3.0

   The Shiki Museum

   The Shiki Museum is the literary museum of Masaoka Shiki, who remade the haiku. It deals with the source of Matsuyama's identity as the city of Botchan and of haiku.

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   3

   The Kasho Museum

   A private museum at Toon opened in 1990 for Takabatake Kasho, the illustrator whose languid boys and girls defined the look of Japanese magazine art in the Taisho years. His whole archive was rescued from destruction and brought back to his home prefecture.

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4. 

   4© 松山市役所 · CC BY 4.0

   Shiroyama Park

   The wooded hill in the middle of Matsuyama, crowned by the castle keep and laid out as a park after the domain fell. Cherry trees fill it in spring, and a ropeway and chairlift climb from the town to the ramparts.

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5. 

   5© Jyo81 (ja:User) · CC BY 3.0

   Matsuyama Central Park

   A hillside park west of Shiroyama, begun in 1983 and completed in 1999, with a lookout built in the shape of a European castle keep. From its terrace the view runs over the city to Matsuyama Castle and out across the Inland Sea.

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6. 

   6© Jyo81 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Dōgo Park

   A park laid out over the earthworks of Yuzuki Castle, the Kono clan's stronghold from the 14th century, beside the hot springs of Dogo. Moats and rebuilt gates survive, and a hilltop lookout takes in Matsuyama and the castle on the far ridge.

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7. 

   7© Merryjack · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Kubota Palm Garden

   A botanical garden given over entirely to palms, several hundred species of them grown outdoors in a climate mild enough to allow it. It is among the more complete palm collections in Japan and is run privately.

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8. 

   8© Reggaeman · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Sairin-ji Temple

   Temple forty-eight of the pilgrimage, in Matsuyama, whose main image is said to have been carved by Gyoki. The temple stands below the road, so pilgrims descend to it rather than climb — unusual on the circuit and locally taken as a lesson in humility.

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9. 

   9© Reggaeman · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Enmyō-ji Temple

   Temple fifty-three of the Shikoku pilgrimage. A brass plate on a pillar here, left by a pilgrim in 1650, is the oldest dated pilgrim's offering known on the circuit, and there is a carved dragon over the gate said to leave at night to drink.

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10. 

    10© Jyo81 (ja:User) · CC BY 3.0

    Seki Art Gallery

    A private museum in Matsuyama opened in 1997, holding modern Japanese oil painting — Umehara, Yasui and their contemporaries — in a small purpose-built gallery. It is quiet, well hung, and rarely busy.

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