Karatsu Castle and the Pine Forest by the Sea

Saga is the prefecture that visitors to Kyushu usually skip. It sits between Fukuoka and Nagasaki, and most people pass straight through it on the train. I did the same for two years. Then I got off at Karatsu, and I was annoyed with myself for waiting so long.

The castle

Karatsu Castle stands on a small hill right at the mouth of the river, with the sea on one side and the town on the other. It is white, and against blue water on a clear day it looks almost too neat to be real. People here call it Maizuru-jo, the "dancing crane castle", because of the way the walls spread out like wings.

The building you see now is a reconstruction from 1966, so the inside is a museum rather than an old interior. Go for the top floor. From there you can see the whole bay, the pine forest, and the mountains behind.

There is a lift up the hill for 100 yen, or stairs for free. I took the stairs going up and regretted it about halfway.

Nijinomatsubara

Along the bay there is a forest of about one million black pine trees. It runs for five kilometres and is only a few hundred metres deep, curving with the beach — the name means "rainbow pine grove".

It was not an accident. The local lord had it planted in the early 1600s to stop the sea wind and the blowing sand from damaging the rice fields behind it. Four hundred years later it is still doing that job.

You can walk or cycle through it. The trees are low and twisted from the wind, and the light comes through in pieces. It was quiet enough that I could hear the sea without seeing it.

Pottery

Karatsu is also one of the old pottery towns of Japan. Karatsu ware is plain, rough and grey-brown, made for daily use rather than decoration. There are small workshops around the town where you can watch and buy. I bought one teacup for 2,000 yen and I use it every morning.

Food

Ika — squid — is the local speciality, and here it is served alive and transparent, sliced very thin. It is expensive, around 3,000 yen. It is also very fresh, and the legs are taken away and brought back fried.

Getting there

From Fukuoka take the subway to Meinohama and stay on the same train — it runs straight through onto the JR Chikuhi line to Karatsu. About 70 minutes, 1,170 yen.