Toyooka City

Toyooka City is a rural city spanning northern Hyogo Prefecture from mountain valleys to the Sea of Japan, and it holds the region's best-known stops within its borders, including the bathhouse town of Kinosaki Onsen. Its proudest achievement flies: the city led the return of the Oriental White Stork to Japan's skies.

Watch the storks nesting around the stork park east of the center, then head for Kinosaki's willow-lined canal and seven public baths. In Izushi, a small castle town, sara soba arrives as stacks of five small plates, and the basalt columns of the Genbudo caves twist beside the Maruyama River.

Toyooka is also Japan's bag-making capital, with a dedicated shopping street selling the local craft. Trains from Kyoto and Osaka run direct to Kinosaki via Toyooka station, and winter crab season is the region's peak. Two nights covers the baths and the castle town at an easy pace.