Takamatsu to the Iya Valley, Shikoku. Japan’s best donuts!

Trip Diary Day 14 - 11 April 2019

Takamatsu to Iya

Check out Episode 11 of our Epic Family Road Trip Across Japan.

We were only in Takamatsu for two nights. Much of this trip is like that. We want to slow down and spend more time at different places but we only have a few weeks and want to see so much. We did have stays of 5 days at each of Kyoto and Kanazawa but for some of the smaller places like Takamatsu we’d only factored in a couple of days before moving on. That’s the problem with four week holidays. Too much to see and so little time. Now if I could manage a 6 month holiday I reckon we could stay in Takamatsu for a day or so longer. So now it was time to check out of the Takamatsu.

We made the 10 AM checkout at the Takamatsu Century Hotel. We quite often don’t. Not by much though. Sometimes we’ll be a half hour or so late checking out. Most places are okay with that but memorably at, I think, Kawaguchiko a couple of the service staff arrived right on check-out time to “help” us. Ever so politely ushering us out and moving bags. I felt sorry for them. I could see the stressed polite smiles plastered to their faces. They only relaxed when we were in the lobby. Big resort style hotels are like that. They need you out so they can clean up for the next guests. But this time there were no search parties out for us. Just pay and go.

A good sized room

Takamatsu Century Hotel

Lima Coffee Roasters & Copoli Doughnuts

Lima Coffee Roasters was again our venue of choice for our favourite poison. We had a couple of caps and then drove to Copoli Doughnuts. Capoli had been closed the day before. Luckily for us it was open today. I bought one of each of the half dozen or so varieties they had to take-away. I’d parked practically in their doorway. Illegally of course. There wasn’t any parking otherwise. Copoli Doughnuts is a tiny shop. Not many donuts considering it was in their name. They either don’t have a big production run or sell out early. They they were making that drip style coffee that seems to be all the rage too. We hadn’t seen Copoli in any books, or tripadvisor or Yelp or anything. Michelle had been scrolling around on Google maps looking at Takamatsu and Copoli Doughnuts jumped out at her. So we hadn’t seen any recommendations for them but, spoiler alert, the donuts were awesome. Take the recommendation from us, if you’re in Takamatsu look for Copoli Doughnuts. They are fantastic.

Takamatsu Castle & Ritsurin Koen (Ritsurin Gardens)

Bag of donuts in hand we drove to Takamatsu Castle. Most of the original castle has gone. The only part of the castle left that is original is the watchtower and a section of wall. I don’t know what happened to the rest? How does one misplace an entire castle? I suspect earthquake or fire. Or a combination of both. I could look it up I suppose but that kind of in depth research would have required a three day visit to Takamatsu. We didn’t think the car park was scenic enough to eat our donuts there so we drove on to Ritsurin Koen - Ritsurin Gardens. There were a couple of people touting for parking in the streets around the gardens. They wanted 600 to 700 yen so I said no thanks and drove on and found a car park next to the north entrance gate that charged only 100 yen. For 30 minutes. So this was going to be a quick visit. We parked there and went in. We only had to buy 3 tickets to the gardens. Brandy is always free. One of the benefits of having a 5 year old on a holiday in Japan is it is like they’re not there financially speaking.

We found a bench near a commemorative statue and ate the donuts. Holy crap they were delicious. Doughy, soft and still warm. Sweet tasty fillings of custard, cream and jam. They were some of the best donuts I’ve had. And from a place we had never heard of prior to that morning. The gardens were a much more pleasant surroundings to eat donuts too. Trees, flowers, ponds, sakura blossoms falling like snow. Lovely gardens. I’ve read the gardens should be considered one of the three best in Japan. I suppose they will just have to be satisfied with being the fourth best garden in Japan. One of the other three best is Kenrokuen in Kanazawa, which we visited a week or so earlier. We wandered and strolled around the Edo period gardens. The gardens were started early in the Edo Period so that makes them about 400 years old. For the record the Edo Period lasted till about the 1860s. I had to look that up because there is so much historic Edo Period stuff in Japan. The first Edo McDonalds was built in the 1700s, the first Edo Starbucks came a little later, Disneyland Tokyo is one of the oldest Edo Period theme parks and was very popular with the Shoguns. Like many of these expansive Japanese gardens there are ponds, bridges, ancient trees, pavilions and the fore mentioned sakura. We saw a tortoise in the creek. And a crane - the bird. While there was some construction work at the gardens we didn’t see any big yellow cranes. We spent about 2 hours wandering. It is a lovely spot to chill and just sit under the sakura snow. I had tummy upset so finished on the can. Not from the doughnuts I hasten to add. A nice warm seat too. Because it was heated, not because it had been used just before I got on. Public toilets on the whole are amazing but I can heartily recommend the Ritsurin Koen toilets (near the North Entrance). After 2 hours in the gardens and a poo and the parking only came to 400 yen. Cheaper than the touts. I considered that a win.

Sakura falling like snow, Ritsurin Koen, Takamatsu, Japan

Sanuki Udon Ueharaya

We couldn’t leave Takamatsu without finishing with the local specialty udon - Sanuki Udon. Conveniently there is also a udon restaurant called Sanuki Udon Ueharaya. It was in sight of the Ritsurin Gardens, literally across the road, and wonder of wonders they had a car park. Ueharaya specialise in udon and soba. But you’d expect that, it is part of their name after all. You wouldn’t go there expecting say, tempura. Except they have tempura. But we came for noodles. Tempura was a bonus. Ueharaya is a build your own noodle soup place. You order a noodle dish. They give you a bowl of cold noodles. Then you go to the vat of hot water where put your noodles in a sieve and dunk once. The pour your noodles back into your bowl. After that go to the soup station and turn the tap to fill your bowl with steaming hot soup. Load up on greens and condiments at the condiments station. Then enjoy slurping your Sanuki Udon soup. Soba came cold on a bamboo tray with a cold soup dipping sauce. You dip and slurp. Michelle had some tempura veggies too. The soup and condiments stations are in the centre of the restaurant. Kind of like a buffet. There were a few tables to sit at there too, however we sat on a raised dais with low table for shoes off seat free eating. Flexible people like the kids and Michelle love sitting on the floor to eat. Me, not so much. I think I mentioned my numb arse more than once. There’s nothing like a delicious, hearty, comforting, hot noodle soup or cold soba for a road trip. So we hit the road. Actually we drove around for 20 minutes looking for Corsica Coffee first, but we couldn’t find it. If you’re ever in Takamatsu and you find Corsica Coffee let me know. Then we hit the road for real.

The Drive to the Iya Valley & Iya Vine House

Takamatsu to Iya Valley

The GPS said it would take 2 and half hours and 2500 yen in tolls. I love that Japanese GPS will tell you what the tolls will be. They will also tell you when you’re approaching the toll gate and the specific toll for that section of road. The GPS advises what lane you should be in for merging or turning. Sometimes there will be 3 or 4 branches away from a turn off and if you get it wrong it may be a while before you can turn around again. That happened to us once in Germany. We missed a turn off to Munich and almost ended up in Czechia. Not much chance of ending up in Czechia here but we could end up back in Honshu. The GPS is very polite and every so often will warn you to “Please be aware of the merge on the left”. Most of the route was uninspiring expressway but the last 30 kays or so wound through the truly inspiring and dramatic Iya valley. The road was very windy, narrow and slow but the valley was shrouded in beautiful colors. Greens, reds and yellows, almost Autumn like, and with a sprinkling of pink and white sakura everywhere. The sakura blossoms were starting to fall so if a breeze was blowing the blossoms fell like snow. Some parts of the road were covered in sakura blossoms and looked like a fresh sprinkle of snow. The Iya Valley is more gorge than valley and is cut through by the Iya River. Ravines, gullies and craggy mountain tops. The valley is very breathtakingly dramatic and rugged. It feels more remote than it probably is.

Iya Vine Bridge Guest House

We arrived at Iya Vine Bridge Guest House at around 5.30. The the only street in town is the main through road and it was very narrow. The front doors of houses and shops almost open directly on to the road so there is nowhere to park. I found a two spot dirt car park overlooking the river adjacent to what I thought was the Iya Vine guesthouse and cranky lady rushed out to tell me to move on. She was gesticulating wildly and saying “no park, no park”. I tried to tell her I just wanted to drop off our luggage but she wouldn’t have it. I moved the car a few metres down the road to another car spot, this time across the road from Iya Vine. Tak our host, a friendly 20 something young man with coloured blond hair, came out to greet us and check us in. He said we could unload bags from here but we’d have to move the car right away because in a neighbour’s spot. It is no wonder the old woman was cranky about a tourist parking in her car space. We’re literally about 20 metres from one of the major tourist attractions in the area so there is probably a constant stream of tourists trying to take the limited parking so I think the residents have cause to be slightly annoyed. The village is on the side of the ravine so there wasn’t much level ground for buildings, the road and parking. Our car park was 200 metres down the road and had room for about 20 cars. We were the only car parked there the entire time we were in the Iya Valley. It is a very quiet time of the year tourist wise. Tak charged us 300 yen per day for parking. The guest house was very inexpensive for a family of four. 18000 yen for two nights. We had a large tatami mat room with 4 futons. Like many guest houses and ryokans the bath and toilet shared. I think we were the only guests. We did see an Australian woman when we arrived and she said the place was fabulous and that she was sad to be leaving. Apart from her the only other person we saw was Tak’s girlfriend who also did the housekeeping.

Above we have the view from our room, the dining lounge area and the kitchen at the Iya Vine Bridge Guesthouse.

Restaurant Satoyama, Sunriver Oboke Ryokan

The drive to Iya told us the village was quite remote. I hadn’t seen any restaurants open on the way through but Tak came to the rescue. He told us there was no food in the village but if we drove to Oboke, 11 kay and about 25 minutes away, there were a couple of limited options. We drove to Restaurant Satoyama at the Sunriver Oboke Hotel. There was only one other customer in the restaurant when we arrived. It looked like it mostly catered to guests and being a very quiet time of year there weren’t too many of those. We had a fried Chicken set and a fried pork set. About 2000 yen. Very cheap. Do you think you could take a family of four out for a decent dinner for less than $25 where you live? There are a number of restaurants along the road but many only cater to the lunch time crowd and are closed in the evening. At this time of year, April, at least.

Oboke had a Lawson. I used the ATM and bought bread, eggs, sausages, milk and yoghurt. Our ryokan has a fully stocked share kitchen we can use so we can make our own breakfast.

The kids played on the Nintendo Switch in lounge room till 9. Tak was fast becoming Brandon’s best friend especially after Tak introduced Brandy to the Nintendo. I didn't realise Tak was only waiting up for us to go to bed. We were well and truly on small town time. I said to Tak if he was only waiting up for us he should just go to bed. No point waiting for me. I had a Milo to drink and had to finish writing this blog post in the lounge dining area because we didn’t have a table and chair in our room. And now I have finished. Good night.

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Check out Episode 11 of our Epic Family Road Trip Across Japan.

Many of the pictures on this page are by Michelle. Essentially the good ones. Michelle retains full copyright and they can not be reproduced without permission. For licensing and using the photos contact Michelle at Michelle Newnan Photography