Matsuyama

Getting Here and Around

By train Matsuyama is 2 hours 10 minutes from Takamatsu; 1 hour 30 minutes from Awa-Ikeda; 3 hours from Tokushima; 3 hours from Kochi. By bus it is about 3 hours to Kochi or Tokushima. By hydrofoil it takes 1 hour 30 minutes to Hiroshima or by ferry: 3 hours. The ferry will take you 6 hours to Oita, overnight to Beppu, Osaka, and Kobe and longer onto Seoul and Vladivostok.

The Orange Ferry that runs overnight between Osaka's Ferry Terminal and Toyo port in Ehime feels like a floating luxury hotel, with chandeliers, a simulated hot-spring bath, cotton yukata, and a nice cafeteria. Boats each way depart 10:30 pm and arrive at 6 am. Berths in an eight-person room go for ¥6,700; a private cabin is ¥10,700 per person. Tell the clerk that you're going to Matsuyama when purchasing the ticket and he'll flag you for the appropriate bus to Matsuyama station. For the reverse trip, make a reservation for the bus that leaves Matsuyama station for Toyo at 8 pm.

Matsuyama is easy to get around in, served by a good tram network and an enormous central landmark, Matsuyama Castle and the moat surrounding it. Orientation is not difficult, though it's a large and not particularly well-organized city; the hastiness with which sections have been developed—and the antiquity of other areas—has left many grimy sectors and dead zones, but for visitors the action is concentrated around a few locations.

No. 5 trams run from the JR station to Dogo Onsen, and most of the city's best spots are on the way. Hand the conductor ¥150 when you exit at the huge orange facade of the now-defunct Laforet, a Tokyo-based department store. The stop is Okaido-mae on the street Ichiban-cho, in front of the city's busy arcades and the restaurant mile surrounding them. Uphill across from the arcades, a five-minute walk past the Starbucks and through one of Matsuyama's cutest shopping streets (the work of several recent years of public works and private investment) will bring you to Matsuyama Castle's ropeway. It's especially nice at night thanks to waist-high streetlights and tall fishbowl lampposts.

If you need help, the City Tourist Information Office has maps and brochures, but no English support. For real assistance with anything head to the Ehime Prefectural International Center. EPIC is a peerless resource for advice on the city and region. The desk staff will bend over backwards to help you with event info, transport tips, hotel reservations, and even rental bikes (for a refundable ¥1,000 deposit). It's next to the Kenmin Bunka Kaikain, or People's Cultural Hall, off the #5 tram's Minami-machi stop.