Exploring Kyushu

OVERVIEW

The natural, historic and cultural delights of Kyushu’s uniquely differing prefectures are unveiled on this comprehensive journey through Japan’s third-largest island, the centre of its early civilisation and cultures.  

This new active tour commences in Fukuoka, with an exploration of Kyushu’s spiritual and cultural heritage at Dazaifu Shrine, the Kyushu National Museum and on a trail walk to Mount Tenpai. In Beppu, we enjoy an arts and crafts walking tour with an opportunity to create your own masterpiece from the local bamboo and to wander through the so-called Seven Hells of its renowned hot springs.

Nearby Usuki features one of southern Japan’s most evocative and lesser-known sites, with rare stone buddhas carved directly from a rockface. Samurai residences and the Oita Prefectural Museum of Art, designed by internationally-renowned Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, are complemented by the serene forest temples of the Kunisaki Peninsula. We admire the natural beauty of Mount Aso and Takachiho Gorge, before heading to Suizenji strolling garden and the galleries and house museums of the castle town of Kumamoto.

We cross to the isolated Amakusa Islands, where the Hidden Christian practised their faith in defiance of official edicts, before arriving in Nagasaki, the centre of foreign trade in the Edo Period and a sobering modern target of atomic warfare. The tour concludes with a return to Fukuoka, with visits to the pottery towns of Arita and Imari and to the fascinating Yayoi site at Yoshinogari.

This tour is designed for a more active traveller, and includes trail walks on dirt paths, with short steep climbs, longer walks into forest temples, and stairs at a number of sites. The final itinerary will include specific details of the walks, which are no more than 2 hours in length and can be undertaken by those with a good level of physical fitness.

TOUR LEADER

Dr Kathleen Olive is one of Australia’s best-known cultural tour leaders, with over fifteen years’ experience leading tours to Western Europe, North America and Japan.

While Kathleen is particularly known for her expertise in Italy, she has recently pursued a longstanding interest in Japanese art, aesthetics and design. Since 2017 she has led nine sold-out tours to Japan and presented regular lectures on Japanese art, history and gardens for ArtsNational Australia.

Highlights

• Explore Fukuoka’s Dazaifu Shrine, one of Japan’s most culturally significant, as well as the serene Shinto temples of the Kinosaki Peninsula

• Come face to face with the mysterious stone buddhas carved into the rock at Usuki, a designated National Treasure

• Ascend Mount Aso’s vast caldera and stare into the waters of the Hells of Beppu

• Experience the natural beauty of Takachiho Gorge and the cultivated splendour of Suizenji Garden

• Encounter the fascinating Hidden Christians, persecuted by the Tokugawa shogunate in World Heritage-listed Nagasaki and the Amakusa Islands

• Admire a wide range of arts and crafts, with an in-depth look at Kyushu’s traditional pottery villages and visits to its diverse art museums

• Uncover a lesser-known and intriguing side of Japanese history, from Yayoi settlements to Kumamoto’s imposing castle and the Samurai districts of the Oita Prefecture