Twenty minutes from the viewing platform where 400 people are queueing for the same photograph, there is a hill with the same view and three people on it.
At Matsushima proper: a car park, a gift shop, a soft-serve queue, and a viewing deck with a rotation of coaches feeding it.
At Otakamori, on Miyato Island, twenty minutes east: a 20-minute walk uphill through pines, and then the bay opening out below with those absurd pine-topped islets scattered across it.
There is one bench. There is one other couple. There is nobody selling you anything, which after two weeks in Japan is genuinely disorienting.
Matsushima Bay is one of the official Three Views of Japan (日本三景), a ranking that dates to 1643 and has been reliably drawing crowds ever since. It is beautiful, and it is thoroughly managed.
Oku-Matsushima is the same bay's eastern end, on and around Miyato Island. Same geology, same pines, same water — a fraction of the people. The Otakamori hill walk is short, well-marked and delivers the postcard view.
You can rent a sea kayak and paddle between the islets, which is the correct way to experience a landscape whose whole point is that it is made of hundreds of small pieces of rock. From the water the scale changes completely.
The area was hit hard by the 2011 tsunami. Nobiru, the station you arrive at, was rebuilt on higher ground. There is a small, plainly presented memorial and museum, and local guides who will talk about it if you ask. Doing that before you go up the hill changes what you are looking at, and it is worth the hour.
Oyster season runs roughly October to March, and the shacks along the coast are the reason a lot of Japanese people come at all.
The islets are famous for surviving. In 2011 the bay's hundreds of pine-covered rocks broke up the wave before it reached parts of the shore, and locals will tell you the islands protected the town — a scenic view, ranked for its beauty since 1643, that turned out to be load-bearing. You came for the postcard. The postcard has been quietly doing a job.
- The Three Views of Japan were named in 1643 by the scholar Hayashi Gahō: Matsushima, Amanohashidate and Miyajima.
- Bashō came here too, on the same journey as Yamadera — and, famously, is said to have been so overwhelmed he could not write a decent poem about it.
- Nobiru Station was destroyed in 2011 and rebuilt inland on higher ground. The old platform area is still visible.
Getting there
JR Senseki Line to Nobiru Station (野蒜) — about 50 minutes from Sendai. Bicycles and kayak rentals are available near the station; the Otakamori trailhead is a short taxi or bike ride from there.