Shodoshima: A Quiet Day on the Olive Island

Shodoshima sits in the Seto Inland Sea within easy reach of Takamatsu, and it is an island that rewards a slow day rather than a hurried one. Olive groves, a soy sauce district that has been brewing for centuries, a gorge counted among the finest in Japan and a seaside film set turned into a village all fit inside a single ferry-to-ferry loop. This guide walks through the crossing from Takamatsu, the island's one-day pass and the four places worth building the day around: Kankakei, the Twenty-Four Eyes Movie Village, the Hishio no Sato soy sauce district and Shodoshima Olive Park.

Getting There: The Ferry from Takamatsu

The ferry from Takamatsu Port is the main way onto Shodoshima. The crossing from Takamatsu to Tonosho Port takes about sixty minutes, and the adult fare is the same whether you land at Tonosho or at Ikeda. A high-speed boat also runs from Takamatsu to Tonosho at double the ferry fare, and a separate ferry links Takamatsu-Higashi Port with Sakate Port at the same adult and child fares as the Tonosho route.

Route	Adult, one way	Child, one way
Takamatsu to Tonosho or Ikeda, by ferry	seven hundred yen	three hundred fifty yen
Takamatsu to Tonosho, by high-speed boat	one thousand four hundred yen	seven hundred yen

If you bring a car on the Takamatsu to Tonosho ferry, the vehicle fare depends on length: three thousand six hundred thirty yen for the under-three-metre class, five thousand thirty yen for the under-four-metre class and six thousand three hundred thirty yen for the under-five-metre class.

• Ferry tickets are, as a rule, sold first come, first served and cannot be reserved; the one exception is Shodoshima Ferry's Tonosho-bound sailings, which accept web bookings. Anyone crossing with a car during the summer holidays or Golden Week is advised to book ahead.
• Shodoshima Ferry, the company running the Takamatsu to Tonosho and Takamatsu to Ikeda routes, can be checked on its website, shikokuferry.com.
• Once on the island, the Shodoshima Olive Bus one-day pass costs one thousand six hundred yen for an adult, tax included.
• The same Olive Bus one-day pass costs eight hundred yen for a child, tax included.

Kankakei: The Gorge at the Centre of the Island

Kankakei is counted among Japan's three great gorge landscapes and lies inside Setonaikai National Park. Its unusual rock formations were shaped by movements of the earth's crust, and the whole valley, rather than any single lookout, is what makes the place. The view changes with the seasons, from fresh green in spring to coloured leaves in autumn, and the autumn season is popular enough that the ropeway begins its day earlier.

• Reaching the top: by ropeway, by car, or on foot with a walk of about an hour.
• The ride: the gondola takes five minutes between Kounun Station and the summit station.
• Round-trip fare: between two thousand one hundred sixty yen and two thousand seven hundred yen, depending on the time of year.
• Child fare in period A (elementary school age): one thousand one hundred seventy yen round trip, six hundred fifty yen one way.
• Extras: a folded bicycle carried in a bag costs one hundred yen as baggage; a pet costs one hundred yen one way or two hundred yen round trip, with assistance dogs and guide dogs excluded.
• Autumn foliage season, from October twenty-first to November thirtieth: the first departure is brought forward to eight in the morning.
• Operating days: the ropeway runs all year with no fixed closing days, though it may stop when the weather is poor or for maintenance.
• Cost of simply looking: walking the viewpoints and paths at Kankakei is free; you only pay if you ride the ropeway.

Twenty-Four Eyes Movie Village

The Twenty-Four Eyes Movie Village stands on the shore at Tanoura in the town of Shodoshima, and it was made by renovating the set built for the film Twenty-Four Eyes. Inside, a wooden schoolhouse from the early Showa era and the village scenery of that time are recreated along the coast, with a book cafe, a Kaiyodo figure gallery and a place serving the kind of school lunch menus that older Japanese visitors remember. Flowers mark the seasons on the grounds: rapeseed blossoms in spring, sunflowers in summer and cosmos in autumn.

• Opening hours: nine o'clock in the morning until five o'clock in the afternoon.
• From Misaki no Bunkyojo: about two minutes by car to the Movie Village.

Hishio no Sato: Four Centuries of Soy Sauce

Soy sauce and somen noodles have been made on Shodoshima for roughly four hundred years. In the stretch between the Umaki and Noma districts, the area known as Hishio no Sato, soy sauce works stand close together, and the scent of soy sauce hangs in the lanes as you walk between the dark storehouses. Some of the breweries here still ferment in wooden barrels, a method that survives at only about one percent of producers in Japan.

This is the part of the island where doing very little is the point: there is no single sight to tick off, only the walk, the smell and the quiet of a working district.

Olive Park and the White Windmill

Shodoshima is known as the first place in Japan where olive growing succeeded, and the island still accounts for about ninety percent of the country's production. Shodoshima Olive Park gathers that story in one place: a white Greek-style windmill looks out over the Seto Inland Sea, and the grounds hold a museum on the history of olive cultivation, a shop, a restaurant, a herb garden and a day-use hot spring. A general store built from the relocated set of the live-action film Kiki's Delivery Service also stands in the park.

Putting the Day Together

A comfortable version of the day starts with the ferry to Tonosho, heads inland to Kankakei first, and then works back along the coast through the Movie Village, Hishio no Sato and Olive Park before the return crossing. The ropeway runs all year with no fixed closing days, so the gorge is a reliable anchor for the plan, and because looking around Kankakei is free without the ropeway, walking up is a fair alternative on a clear day. Fares on the island are simple: one adult one-day pass at one thousand six hundred yen covers the Olive Bus for the whole loop. If you would rather end the day on a different stretch of coast, the ferry linking Takamatsu-Higashi Port and Sakate Port costs seven hundred yen for an adult and three hundred fifty yen for a child.

If you would rather have someone else handle the crossing and the connections, you can look for guided Shodoshima day tours; the selection is small, so treat it as a check rather than a promise. And if one day feels too short, which it often does here, search for a place to stay on Shodoshima and give the island a second morning.