Tomonoura

Tomonoura has served as a harbour since the age of the Man'yoshu, because ships in the middle of the Seto Inland Sea waited here for the tide to turn. It grew into a town of merchants, blacksmiths, brewers and fishermen. Ashikaga Yoshiaki was the last shogun of the Muromachi period, and in 1576 he fled to Tomo and tried to revive his government from here.

The harbour keeps its Edo-period works almost whole. People of Nishimachi gave the stone Joyato lantern in 1859, and at more than 10 metres from its foundation it is the tallest of its kind left from that era. Below it the stepped gangi landing let boats load at any tide, and the cut-stone walls of the old coastguard post still stand on Taigashima.

Taichoro is the reception hall of Fukuzenji, built in the Genroku era (1688 to 1703) on a stone wall over the sea. Korean envoys stayed here, and in 1711 the official Yi Bang-won called the view the finest east of Korea; the chief envoy Hong Gye-hui named the hall in 1748. In April 1867 Sakamoto Ryoma's ship Irohamaru sank off Tomo, and the talks over the wreck took place partly at Taichoro while he hid in an attic room of the Masuya Seiemon house.