The Dancing Girl of Izu: Shuzenji to Shimoda

The story's road starts in the hot-spring town of Shuzenji, the first name on the troupe's way south: Shuzenji, Yugashima, over Amagi Pass, then Yugano and Shimoda. The narrator is a student who travels the Izu Peninsula during the last days of the summer holidays. Shuzenji's hot springs have been used for over fourteen centuries, and the best known of them is Tokko-no-yu. Today the town is still a spa, the natural first stop for anyone walking the story's road.

Location precision: The story names no building here; the pin marks the Shuzenji hot-spring area.

Visitor guidance: Tokko-no-yu is the best-known spring of the Shuzenji hot-spring area.

On the road at Yugashima the student first meets the troupe of travelling musicians and is drawn to one of them, the young dancer. The same village mattered to the author: Kawabata wrote The Dancing Girl of Izu at the Yumotokan inn here, and his room is still kept. The story was written close to the place where it begins.

Location precision: The meeting is on the road near Yugashima; the pin marks the hot-spring village, not the exact bend.

Visitor guidance: The Yumotokan inn is in Yugashima; check with the inn about seeing the room.

The student follows the troupe toward the Amagi tunnel, and it is on the far side that the conversation begins: after traversing the tunnel, Eikichi, the troupe's leader, starts talking to him. The old tunnel was finished in 1905 and is 445.5 metres long. It is Japan's first road tunnel built entirely of cut stone.

Visitor guidance: The old Amagi Tunnel is a cut-stone road tunnel on the Amagi Pass road.

The group rests for the night in Yugano, a hot-spring village south of the pass. Here comes the story's best-known moment: the narrator sees the naked dancer, Kaoru, come out of the bath house and wave at him. Yugano keeps its link with the author today: the inn Fukudaya, connected with Kawabata, still stands, and a literary monument has been built next to it.

Location precision: The pin marks the Yugano hot-spring village; the story does not give the inn's exact position.

Visitor guidance: Fukudaya inn and the literary monument beside it are in Yugano.

At Shimoda the student boards the boat that takes him back to Tokyo. At the landing the dancer is crouched by the water, waiting for him, the last image of her in the story. Shimoda, a port town at the southern tip of the Izu road, is a setting for much of Kawabata's famous short story, and the journey ends here.

Location precision: The pin marks Shimoda port in general, not the exact landing used in the story.