Noshiro Japan Akita
4
Cruises availables
At departure or passage at this port
Silversea Cruises (4 Cruises)
Frequently Asked Questions
Bare-bones, and deliberately so. The facilities normally run on cargo ships and timber carriers: a quay, tents put up for the occasion, smiling volunteers, sometimes taiko drums as a welcome, and a shuttle into town. There are no queues and no tourist shops.
The Shirakami-Sanchi range, listed as a World Heritage site back in 1993 for its old-growth beech forest, the last of its scale in Japan. Excursions get there in about an hour by road, through rice fields and foothills.
Depending on the route, you walk under vaults of century-old beeches filtering green light, follow clear gorges, or reach the Juniko ponds. The most famous of them, Aoike, is a startling ink blue that photographs struggle to capture.
The maintained trails are accessible to most visitors. These are forest walks, not mountain hikes. Do bring closed shoes, though, as the undergrowth stays damp.
The shopping streets lead to workshops still working Akita cedar: chopsticks, boxes and hooped buckets whose scent fills the shops. Between the quay and the residential districts lies Kaze no Matsubara, one of the country's largest coastal pine forests, criss-crossed with walking paths.
For generations, Akita cedar brought down from the mountains made this Sea of Japan port one of the country's timber capitals. Something of that workshop scent still hangs in the streets.
Because its technical high school has won dozens of national titles, and the town proudly claims the sport as its own, banners in the streets included. A small detail, but it says a lot about local pride.
In August, the Nebunagashi festival lights up the evenings: giant castle-shaped lanterns painted with warriors and dragons parade to flutes and drums before floating down the Yoneshiro River. If your call coincides, count yourself lucky.
Very little, and it is worth knowing before setting off on your own. A few words of Japanese, a smile and the town map handed out at the landing are plenty. Shopkeepers will come out of their stores to point the way, which more than makes up for it.
Nothing monumental, and that is the point: a cedar object, a bag of Akita rice, a bottle of regional sake, sometimes a few rice crackers handed over by a stranger at the market. You leave with the memory of a welcome rather than of a sight.
