Ise-Shima National Park

Ise-Shima National Park protects the entire Shima peninsula at the eastern edge of the Kii region, a sweeping landscape that unites two things rarely found together in one park: extraordinary natural beauty and profound spiritual significance. Established in 1946, it encompasses the deeply indented ria coastlines of Ago Bay and Matoya Bay, the forested mountains of the interior, dozens of offshore islands, and the sacred cedar forests of Ise Jingu itself, Japan's most revered Shinto shrine. It is one of the few national parks in the country to embrace a major cultural monument at its heart, and this blend of the wild and the holy gives Ise-Shima its distinctive character.

The park's signature scenery is its coastline. Ago Bay, with its labyrinth of pine-clad islands and floating pearl rafts, is the celebrated centrepiece, but the peninsula is fringed with beautiful bays, capes, beaches and cliffs where the sheltered inner waters give way to the open Pacific. This is a working landscape as much as a scenic one: the calm bays cradle Japan's cultured-pearl industry, and along the shores the traditional ama women divers still gather abalone and shellfish, sustaining a maritime culture two thousand years old.

Inland, the peninsula rises into gentle forested hills, the highest being Mount Asama at 555 metres, crowned by the temple of Kongoshoji and reached by the scenic Ise-Shima Skyline toll road, which delivers a panorama stretching from Ise Bay to the Pacific and, on clear days, distant peaks. The equally lovely Pearl Road threads along the coast between Toba and Ago, linking a string of viewpoints, beaches and fishing villages, and ranks among the finest scenic drives in western Japan.

At the park's spiritual core lie the vast, ancient forests surrounding the Naiku and Geku of Ise Jingu, where towering cryptomeria cedars, some centuries old, have been protected for over a thousand years as sacred ground. Walking the shrine paths beneath these giants, beside the crystalline Isuzu River, is to experience the park's natural and cultural values fused into one.

For visitors, Ise-Shima is best approached as a region to tour rather than a single site to tick off. Its pleasures are spread across the peninsula: cruising Ago Bay from Kashikojima, watching an ama demonstration near Toba, driving the coastal roads to hidden capes and beaches, climbing to viewpoints like Yokoyama, and walking the sacred forests of Ise. A day is enough for a taste; two or three reward the traveller richly.

Access is easy by Japanese standards, with Kintetsu limited express trains running directly to Ise, Toba and Kashikojima from Osaka, Kyoto and Nagoya, and JR services reaching Ise and Toba. However, the park's dispersed coastal beauty is most fully enjoyed by car, which unlocks the Pearl Road, the Ise-Shima Skyline and the quieter beaches and viewpoints beyond the reach of the railway. Whether drawn by pilgrimage, pearls, seafood or scenery, travellers find in Ise-Shima a region where nature and the sacred are inseparably entwined.