Izu West Coast

Breakfast was served in the room at a non-negotiable 7:30, so we were up early.
The food was again very local and somewhat tough going that early in the morning – think grilled fish, more tofu, raw egg, rice, and a fish stew made from the leftover fish carcass from last night.

After breakfast, we headed for a town up the coast called Matsuzaki, where there was a museum and a beach we wanted to visit.
On the way into town, we stopped off at a really nice—albeit Western—café for a coffee, and we all actually ended up getting shakshuka as well. The town itself was lovely, with lots of buildings decorated with namako-kabe, or sea cucumber walls in English. (There’s a photo below.) It’s basically a style of wall reinforcement from the Edo period using raised plaster strips arranged in a grid pattern.

After wandering around town for a bit, we headed to the next bay over to a beach called Nishiizu and picked up some bits from the nearby supermarket to cook lunch. It was too windy to eat on the beach, so we cooked up by the car before going for a swim and sunbathing for a couple of hours.

A bit further up the coast were some rocky outcrops we walked around, which offered great views of the coastline and the mainland in the distance. It was a very peaceful spot and still pleasantly warm, despite the wind being fairly strong.

As we hadn’t showered since the beach, we went to the Dogashima Hotel Onsen, which had an amazing view of Dogashima Island – an island connected to the mainland only at low tide, making for a pretty stunning sunset. Our only regret was not realising there was an outdoor bath at the onsen; we only used the indoor one, which didn’t have a view. We went down to the beach afterwards to make up for it, though.

Finally, we had dinner at a yakiniku place that’s been owned by the same family for 50 years. The meat was such good quality, and we were served by three generations of the family – granny in the kitchen, with mum and granddaughter on front of house. It was called Daimon, and I’d highly recommend it if you’re ever in Izu.