~3h with the 11-min train — the round trip from the gangway, with the 60-minute margin kept aside.
Tap a photo to see it large. 6 photographs, each credited.
Where the retired shogun actually lived. Moats, reconstructed turrets and a proper castle park — 11 minutes by train, so it fits even a cautious clock.
He gave up the title after two years, moved here, and ran the country for another decade
Sunpu was where Ieyasu spent both his childhood as a hostage and his retirement as the most powerful man in Japan. The castle he rebuilt here in 1607 burned and was dismantled, but the moats, stone walls and two reconstructed gates survive as a park in the middle of Shizuoka city, eleven minutes by train from the port.
Tokugawa Ieyasu became shogun in 1603 and resigned in 1605 — after two years — handing the title to his son. It was not a retirement. He moved to Sunpu, the town he had been a hostage in as a boy, and governed from there until he died, which is why the most important castle of the early Tokugawa period is not in Tokyo.
The town he returns to at the end
And resigns two years later
Proving the shogunate is hereditary
The effective capital of Japan is here
Take the ropeway to Kunozan Toshogu. It is the original burial site, and Nikko is the copy.
Counted from the moment you step off the gangway. The hour before all-aboard is not in this bar; it is already set aside.
11 minutes each way is the honest figure for jr 11 min, not the optimistic one. If your ship is late, cut the 2 hr 38 min in the middle. Never cut the hour at the end.
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare on a 6-hour stop ashore.
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
4 hr for bothWasabi (real, from the valleys upstream), deep-steamed green tea, and Chibi Maruko-chan goods — the town’s own comic icon.
See the detail → 4 hr 30 min for bothJapan's tuna capital, and the market beside the pier proves it — thick-cut bowls at fishmonger prices, picture menus everywhere.
See the detail →
4 hr 30 min for bothA whole alley of sushi counters at Dream Plaza — English-friendly, no reservations, and the fish came off the boats you can see from the window..
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