Retro Gobo: A Photogenic Town Walk

Overview

Gobo's old quarter is built for a slow, camera-in-hand morning. Around Jinaimachi, the wooden townscape of the Edo, Meiji and Showa eras still stands, and the back lanes reward anyone who wanders them with a genuine sense of stepping back in time, before rewarding you again with an old-fashioned cafe and a box of local sweets.

The obvious photograph is the Kishu Railway, Japan's shortest private line at 2.7 kilometres: a single-carriage train and the weathered little terminus of Nishi-Gobo, beyond which the rails simply run out. Nearby, the great torii of Shino-Hachiman Shrine anchors the Gobo Matsuri, the district's biggest festival, and a surviving brick wall is all that remains of the Hinode spinning mill, founded in 1913 by a nephew of the industrialist Shibusawa Eiichi. The streets of Higashi-machi, Yoko-machi and Naka-machi hold the Hidaka Betsuin, southern Wakayama's largest Jodo-Shinshu temple, and a scatter of Edo-to-Showa wooden houses.

Two cafes define the pause: M-N, run single-handedly since 1974, where a morning set of butter-soaked toast and coffee starts around 500 yen, and Sequoia, roasting its own beans since about 1975. For a souvenir, the Taisho-era confectioner Kogetsudo makes tsurigane-manju, little bells filled with sweet bean paste. Cafe hours and days off vary, so check before you set out.