No upcoming voyage currently calls at Matsuzaki
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 Matsuzaki
A small town on the far side of Izu from Tokyo, facing Suruga Bay with Mount Fuji across the water. Something like a hundred and ninety of its buildings still carry namako-kabe — square tiles set on the diagonal with thick white plaster raised in a lattice between them — and the town produced the plasterer whose reliefs in that same material are hung and looked at as sculpture. The whole peninsula was certified a UNESCO Global Geopark in April 2018.
Within reach of the port
The namako-kabe streets
The walls were built from the end of the Edo period into the twentieth century, and enough of them survive in one place that you can walk from one to the next. Merchant houses, storehouses and a school, all in the same black-and-white grid.
Matsuzaki Tourism Association (official) ↗in Japanese — your browser can translate it
The Izu no Chohachi Museum
Irie Chohachi left Matsuzaki as a boy in the 1820s and came back a plasterer whose work in relief is looked at the way paintings are. The museum built for him in 1984 is finished inside and out in the trades he worked in, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs documents it among the modern buildings it keeps a record of.
Agency for Cultural Affairs (official) ↗in Japanese — your browser can translate it
The Ishibe terraces
Rice terraces on the slope above the sea south of the town, given up in the 1990s and restored by the hamlet that had always farmed them. Black and red rice are planted here by hand, and the water is directly below the lowest paddy.
Matsuzaki Town (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
- Matsuzaki Tourism Association (official) ↗in Japanese — your browser can translate it
- Izu Peninsula UNESCO Global Geopark (official) ↗