Sakata owes everything to rice and ships. In the heyday of Edo-period maritime trade, kitamaebune sailing ships loaded the harvests of the Shonai plain here before sailing along the Sea of Japan to Osaka, and the town's merchants ranked among the most prosperous in the country. This trading past has left wooden warehouses, scholars' gardens and a quiet elegance that reveals itself over the course of a leisurely stroll. Ships call at the commercial port, a few kilometres from the centre; a shuttle usually links the quays to the station area, from which the main attractions can be reached in a few minutes by taxi or on a pleasant walk.

The Sankyo warehouses

Start with the city's iconic image: twelve rice warehouses from 1893, lined up along a canal and backed by a row of century-old zelkova trees planted to temper the heat. The double roofs and dark walls of the Sankyo complex bear witness to a thoroughly Japanese ingenuity — regulating temperature and humidity without any machinery. Some of the buildings are still used for storage, while others house shops selling regional products and an exhibition space. Beneath the trees, the paved walkway is among the most photogenic spots on the Sea of Japan side of Tohoku. Nearby, the knoll of Hiyoriyama Park, from which sailors once watched the weather before setting out to sea, preserves an old wooden lighthouse that still watches over the mouth of the Mogami River.

The Homma merchant villa

The Homma family, the wealthiest in Sakata, bequeathed to the city an art museum set in an Edo-period residence. You move about in your socks on the tatami mats, among calligraphy, ceramics and folding screens, before sitting down facing the garden: pruned pines, a carp pond and vistas designed to evoke miniature landscapes. The whole gives a precise idea of the refinement the rice trade could pay for.

Ken Domon, the eye of Japan

A few minutes from the centre, a concrete building set beside a pool honours a native son: Ken Domon, a pioneer of Japanese realist photography. Japan's first museum devoted to a single photographer, it displays his postwar images of temples and children's faces in rotation, in an architecture that converses with the water and, on a clear day, with the snow-capped silhouette of Mount Chokai. Even without knowing his work, you come away moved by the quiet power of these photographs.

The maiko salon

Another legacy of the merchant era: the Somaro, a former banquet restaurant carefully restored, where maiko carry on dance and music in salons with gilded woodwork. The afternoon performances, short and accessible, let you approach this art without formality. The building's corridors, with their lanterns and staircases polished by the decades, are worth the visit on their own.

Flavours of Shonai

The surrounding plain feeds a renowned cuisine: glossy-grained rice, sake from local breweries, fish from the nearby sea. Around the market or in the small restaurants of the centre, a sashimi lunch or a simple onigiri made with this year's rice gives you the measure of the terroir. Sake lovers will find several houses offering tastings.

Heading back on board

On the way back to the ship, the port's silos and cranes are a reminder that Sakata still works with the sea, true to its calling. The port call is nothing spectacular in the usual sense; it offers something better: a provincial Japan, polished by trade and culture, that confides in a low voice. Those who know how to listen leave with the feeling of having been welcomed, rather than having merely visited.