Shimada Onsen

Shimada Onsen draws visitors to a city famous across Japan for the Shimada hazare, the historic crossing of the Oi River where women — who were forbidden to cross by conventional means during the Edo period — were carried across by porters, an unusual practice that made Shimada notorious among travelers on the Tokaido highway. Today the Oigawa Railway steams through the deep gorge above the city, its vintage locomotives making the journey one of Japan's most celebrated steam train experiences, drawing railway enthusiasts from across the country and abroad. The onsen's mineral waters, rising from the geothermal depths below the Oi River basin, provide a warm and nostalgic welcome to a city where history lives vividly in both its rivers and its rails.