Between Edo and Kyoto ran the Tokaido, the busiest road of feudal Japan, and its most feared stretch crossed the volcanic mountains of Hakone. There the shogunate built a barrier where every traveller had to show their papers, and where women leaving Edo were checked with particular care. Twelve stops between the hot spring town of Yumoto, the hotel of foreign visitors, the open-air sculpture museum, the steaming valley of black eggs, the crater lake with its pirate ships, the post town Hiroshige painted, the Hakone barrier, the Fuji viewpoint, the avenue of ancient cedars, the torii standing in the water, the stone-paved road with its teahouse and the village of secret boxes. Approximate audio duration: 22 minutes.
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Hakone: el Fuji, el Tokaido y la barrera que vigilaba a los viajeros del shogun
Entre Edo y Kioto corría el Tokaido, el camino más transitado del Japón feudal, y su tramo más temido cruzaba las montañas volcánicas de Hakone. Ahí el shogunato levantó una barrera donde cada viajero debía mostrar sus papeles, y donde a las mujeres que salían de Edo se las revisaba con especial cuidado. Doce paradas entre el pueblo termal de Yumoto, el hotel de los visitantes extranjeros, el museo de esculturas al aire libre, el valle humeante de los huevos negros, el lago del cráter con sus barcos piratas, la estación que pintó Hiroshige, la barrera de Hakone, el mirador del Fuji, la avenida de cedros centenarios, el torii que se levanta en el agua, el camino empedrado con su casa de té y la aldea de las cajas secretas. Duración aproximada de audio: 22 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~22 min of audio · 26.16 km on foot (~6 h 30 min walking) · about 7 h in total
You are in Hakone Yumoto, at the foot of the mountains. Look at the Hayakawa river tumbling between rocks and the hot spring hotels clinging to the slope. Here the plain ends and the climb begins.
For more than two and a half centuries, the Tokaido, the Eastern Sea Road, passed through this valley. It linked Edo, today's Tokyo, with Kyoto, the emperor's city. It ran for some 490 kilometres, with 53 post stations where travellers ate, slept and changed horses.
The stretch ahead of you was the most feared of the whole road. It was called the Hakone Hachiri, the eight ri of Hakone. Some 32 kilo…
2
The Hotel That Opened Japan to the World
You came up on a train that zigzags up the mountain. Notice that on some stretches it reverses: these are switchbacks that let it climb gradients of up to 80 per thousand. The line to Gora opened in 1919.
Now you are in front of the Fujiya Hotel, in Miyanoshita. Look at the curved, temple-like roofs set on a Western-style hotel building. That blend is the story of Hakone in the nineteenth century.
The hotel opened in 1878, barely ten years after the shogunate fell. It was founded by Yamaguchi Sentaro, who had been to the United States and understood something new: foreigners wanted to see Ja…
3
Sculptures Among Volcanoes
You are in the Hakone Open-Air Museum. Look at the sculptures scattered across the lawn, with green mountains behind them. The sky and the landscape are part of the work.
The museum opened in 1969 and was the first of its kind in Japan. The idea was simple and bold: take sculpture out of closed galleries and let it converse with Hakone's volcanic scenery.
Today it has more than a hundred works in its gardens. There are pieces by artists such as Henry Moore, whose reclining figures look like hills, alongside twentieth-century Japanese sculptors.
Find the tower of coloured glass. Inside is a …
4
Owakudani: the Valley That Was Hell
You have stepped off the ropeway at Owakudani. Notice the rotten-egg smell in the air: it is sulphur. Look at the bare slope, yellow and grey, with steam rising from dozens of cracks.
You are inside a volcano. Hakone is a huge caldera, formed by eruptions over hundreds of thousands of years. This valley was born about three thousand years ago, when an explosion of Mount Kamiyama tore the mountain open.
For centuries it was called Jigokudani, Hell Valley. According to tradition, the name was changed to the present one, Great Boiling Valley, when Emperor Meiji visited Hakone in 1873. Hell was …
5
Lake Ashi and the Farmers' Tunnel
You are at Togendai, at the northern tip of Lake Ashi. Look at the still water among wooded mountains, and the boats shaped like pirate galleons waiting at the pier.
The lake lies about 725 metres above sea level, inside the caldera. It formed some three thousand years ago, when the same volcanic activity that opened Owakudani blocked a river with mud and rock. The water was trapped.
The pirate ships are pure modern showmanship: they have sailed the lake since the 1960s. But this lake has a far more interesting story, one you cannot see from the surface.
In the seventeenth century, the farm…
6
Hakone-juku: the Station Hiroshige Painted
You have landed at Hakone-machi, at the southern end of the lake. Look around: this quiet town was one of the 53 stations of the Tokaido. It was the tenth leaving from Edo.
Hakone-juku was founded in 1618, by order of the shogunate. There was no town here, so they created one: families were brought from Odawara and from Mishima, the stations on either side of the mountain, to serve the travellers.
There were inns for every rank. The most important, the honjin, were reserved for the daimyo, the feudal lords. From 1635 the shogun forced them to spend every other year in Edo, and their huge pro…
7
The Barrier: Guns In, Women Out
You are in front of the Hakone barrier, the Hakone Sekisho. Look at the wooden gates, the palisades and the guardhouses between the lake and the mountain. There was no way around it.
The Tokugawa shogunate set it up in 1619. It was one of the most important checkpoints in the country. Every traveller going to or from Edo on the Tokaido had to pass here and show a travel permit, the tegata.
It is often said that all luggage was opened here, but what really worried the shogun was something else. A phrase summed it up: guns coming in, women going out.
Guns heading into Edo could serve a rebell…
8
Fuji from the Lakeshore
You are in Onshi-Hakone Park, on a small peninsula jutting into the lake. Look northwest, above the mountains across the water. If the sky is clear, there is Fuji.
The emperor had a summer villa here, built in 1886. After the Second World War it became a public park. Emperors chose Hakone for the same reason as foreigners: the fresh air and this view.
Fuji is 3,776 metres high, the tallest mountain in Japan. It is about thirty kilometres from here. It is a young, almost perfect volcano, and for the Japanese it has always been a sacred mountain.
Its last eruption was in 1707. It lasted weeks…
9
The Avenue of Cedars
You are walking beneath the cedars of the old Tokaido. Look at the trunks: huge, straight, dark, some so thick you could not wrap your arms around them. Above, the crowns almost hide the sky.
These trees did not grow here by chance. They were planted by order of the shogunate in the early seventeenth century, when the road was laid along the lakeshore. Many of those you see are around four hundred years old.
They had a very practical purpose. In summer they shaded travellers climbing with heavy loads. In winter they sheltered them from the wind and snow coming down from the mountains.
They …
10
The Torii in the Water and the Samurai Shrine
You are in Moto-Hakone, in front of the red torii rising from the lake. Look at how the water reaches its pillars. There are probably people queuing to take a photo beneath it.
That torii is the Heiwa no Torii, the Torii of Peace. It is much more recent than it looks: it was raised in 1952 to celebrate the peace treaty that ended the occupation of Japan after the war.
But the shrine it belongs to is very old. According to tradition, Hakone Shrine was founded in the year 757. It is hidden among the cedars on the slope, at the top of a stone staircase.
For centuries it was a shrine of warrior…
11
The Stone Road and the Four-Hundred-Year-Old Teahouse
You are standing on the stone paving of the old Tokaido. Look at the stones beneath your feet: large, irregular, worn, mossy at the edges. Walk carefully, because they are slippery when it rains.
At first this road was dirt. With Hakone's rain it turned into mud up to the knees. To make it passable, bamboo mats were laid over the mud, and they had to be replaced constantly.
In 1680 the shogunate decided to pave it. It was a huge undertaking in the middle of the mountains, stone by stone. Many of the stretches you are walking on date from that time, and form one of the best-preserved sections…
12
Hatajuku: the Village of Secret Boxes
You have reached Hatajuku, a small village on the hillside, between forest and river. Look at the workshop windows: boxes, trays and coasters covered with geometric wooden mosaics.
Hatajuku was never one of the 53 official stations. It was an intermediate stop, a place to catch your breath between Odawara and the summit. Travellers stopped here to eat something and buy souvenirs for the road.
And the souvenir of Hakone was wood. Craftsmen in these mountains had worked wood for centuries. In the late Edo period, Hatajuku developed a technique of its own: yosegi-zaiku.
Notice the colours in t…
How long does the "Hakone: Mount Fuji, the Tokaido and the Barrier That Watched the Shogun's Travellers" audio tour take?
It has about 22 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 26.16 km walking route (~6 h 30 min on foot). Plan roughly 7 h in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "Yumoto: Gateway to the Mountains" (coordinates 35.2325, 139.105). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Hakone and pick "Hakone: Mount Fuji, the Tokaido and the Barrier That Watched the Shogun's Travellers". No account required to start.
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No wifi needed · Spanish, English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean
