Hagi-yaki potteryPhoto: Kyle McDonald / CC BY 2.0
Checked · Researched, not yet visited · times from official timetables and our estimates · Takumi Yamada
Hagi’s soft, plain stoneware has been made for more than 400 years. It is absorbent: tea seeps into the fine cracks of the glaze and the colour changes with use, which potters call the seven changes of Hagi. The Jozan kiln by the castle ruins lets visitors see its climbing kiln; its shop is open 08:00–17:00. Hagi-yaki Kaikan, near Higashi-Hagi, runs painting sessions from ¥2,200. The Hagi Uragami Museum shows ceramics for ¥400, every day but Monday.
- Short enough to be certain of: 1 hr door to door, so even a tender day works.
- Reachable on foot from the berth, so no timetable can strand you.
Where the 1 hr goes
The hour before all-aboard is not in this bar; it is already set aside. The minutes are our estimates from timetables and maps, not timed on the ground.
If your ship is late, cut the 50 min in the middle. Never cut the hour at the end.
What to put beside it
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
2 hr for bothHagi Castle ruins and Shizuki Park
Mori Terumoto built his castle here in 1604, at the foot of Mt Shizuki.
See the detail
2 hr for bothThe Hagi Hakkei boat
A small roofed boat starts beside the castle ruins and follows the Hashimoto River past the walls of the Horiuchi and Hiyako samurai quarters; in calm weather it goes out to sea off Kikugahama.
See the detail
2 hr 30 min for bothShokasonjuku and Shoin Shrine
A wooden house of about 50 square metres, one eight-mat room and a later extension, where Yoshida Shoin taught from 1857.
See the detail