Kagoshima

An active volcano 15 minutes by ferry from the city port, with boats running around the clock. Eating udon from the onboard stand during the crossing is the custom on this route, and from the Yunohira lookout on the island the crater ridge feels close.

In a seaside park a short walk from the Sakurajima ferry terminal runs a footbath about 100m long. It costs nothing, and with your feet in the water you look straight up at the volcano. Bring your own towel.

The Shimazu family's villa garden, laid out in 1658, borrowing Sakurajima as its hill and Kinko Bay as its pond. The Shoko Shuseikan beside it is World Heritage as part of the Meiji industrial sites, and its ticket is sold bundled with the garden's.

A 107m hill at the city's heart with Sakurajima straight ahead beyond the rooftops. It was Saigo Takamori's last stand in 1877, and the cave where he hid out survives on the slope below.

The city's main district, a grid of crossing arcades that keep off both rain and ash. The Tenmonkan-dori streetcar stop drops you at an arcade entrance, and the shop that created shirokuma shaved ice is inside.

You lie on the beach in a yukata while staff shovel sand heated by hot springs over you. About 10 minutes is enough to sweat, and with the train taking about 1 hour from Kagoshima-Chuo, the round trip fits into half a day.

One ticket covers seven samurai-house gardens along a lane of stone walls. Families still live in the houses, so only the gardens are open, seen across the yard, and the bus from the city takes over 1 hour.

The aquarium beside the Sakurajima ferry terminal, with the whale shark of its Kuroshio tank as the star. At set times the dolphins swim out into a channel outside the building, and anyone on the seawall can see them without a ticket.

A museum of the Restoration by the river in Kajiya-cho, where Saigo Takamori and Okubo Toshimichi were both born. In the basement theatre robot figures act out the story at fixed showtimes, so time your visit to them.

A vermilion shrine rebuilt by the Shimazu lord in 1715, its main hall designated a National Treasure in 2022. A cedar thought to be about 800 years old stands in the grounds, and getting there from the city by train and bus takes a little over 1 hour.

A 924m volcanic cone rising from the sea where the Satsuma Peninsula ends, nicknamed Satsuma Fuji. The trail corkscrews round it like a seashell, two to three hours to the top. Nishi-Oyama at its foot is JR's southernmost station.

Photos and last letters of the kamikaze pilots who flew from Chiran airfield in the closing months of the Pacific War, in the samurai-garden town. Over a thousand faces line the walls; no photography inside. Combine it with the gardens.

About two hours from Kagoshima port by jetfoil, one of Japan's first natural World Heritage sites (1993). The round trip on foot to the Jomon Sugi cedar takes some ten hours, so hikers leave before dawn. Rain is frequent; pack waterproofs.

Shrine to Shimazu Nariakira, the lord who brought Western industry to Satsuma, minutes on foot from Tenmonkan. A torii over 20m tall towers above the avenue, and on the mid-July Rokugatsudo nights thousands of lanterns line the approach.

A camphor tree in the grounds of Kamo Hachiman Shrine in Aira, ranked Japan's biggest tree by a 1988 Environment Agency survey. Its base girth tops 24m and its age is put at about 1,500 years. The trunk is hollow, and you can peer into the cavity.