No upcoming voyage currently calls at Kumano
NYK Cruises publish new voyages a few times a year. Tell us when you would like to sail and we will write to you when a call here is scheduled.
About Kumano
The Kii peninsula where the mountains stop at the water. The pilgrim routes to the three Kumano shrines were inscribed by UNESCO in 2004 as part of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range, and Kumano holds the stretch of them that is not a mountain path at all — twenty-five kilometres of pebble beach, walked along the shoreline. The coast either side of the port belongs to Yoshino-Kumano National Park.
Within reach of the port
Onigajo
A kilometre of tuff cliff cut into tiers of caves by the waves and then lifted clear of them by successive earthquakes. It is a national place of scenic beauty and a natural monument, it falls inside the World Heritage inscription, and a walkway runs along the rock face at the level the sea used to reach.
Kumano City (official) ↗in Japanese — your browser can translate it
Hana no Iwaya
A cliff worshipped with nothing built in front of it — the rock is the shrine. The Nihon Shoki, completed in 720, names this place as the burial place of the goddess Izanami, and a rope is slung from the top of the face down to the ground and renewed twice a year.
Kumano City Tourism Association (official) ↗in Japanese — your browser can translate it
The Maruyama rice terraces
Inland from the port, around thirteen hundred small paddies stacked up a single hillside. They had fallen to a fraction of that number by the 1990s and were worked back up by the town and by volunteers, which is why there is still something to look at.
Kumano City (official) ↗in Japanese — your browser can translate it
Shore excursions
NYK Cruises run their own guided excursions at each port, booked by guests themselves through My ASUKA PLANS — the booking window opens before departure and depends on your cabin class. They are conducted in Japanese. Going ashore independently is always an option.
Official sources
- Kumano City Tourism Association (official) ↗in Japanese — your browser can translate it
- Yoshino-Kumano National Park (Ministry of the Environment) ↗