Japan
Tomonoura
A harbour so intact that Miyazaki lived here two months and drew Ponyo's world from it.
The harbour curves like a cupped hand. Tomonoura is a fishing port on Japan's Inland Sea that stopped changing roughly three hundred years ago, not because it was preserved but because the world moved on without it. The stone quays, the lantern lighthouse, the wooden façades — they are not reconstructions. They are what happens when a town is left alone.
Tomonoura was the port of waiting for tides: in the Edo period ships anchored here for the turn of the current before running the narrow straits of the Seto Inland Sea, and its circular harbour, stone steps, mooring posts and the Edo-period Jōyatō stone lantern lighthouse survive almost intact. Hayao Miyazaki stayed in the town for two months in 2005, and the hills, the curving waterfront and the sea-facing houses found their way into Ponyo. The local obsession is sea bream — the town is famous for its red bream fishery — served grilled, simmered, raw and pressed into sushi, alongside hōmeishu, a sweet herbal liqueur made here since the seventeenth century. A temple path climbs to a hilltop view of the Inland Sea scattered with islands.
Solo
Tomonoura can be walked in an afternoon and quiet enough to sit at the harbour for an hour without distraction. The pace here is genuinely slow.
Couple
A temple path climbs to a hilltop view of the Inland Sea at sunset. The walk down passes lantern-lit lanes and the smell of grilled sea bream.
- A port kept whole since the Edo period — the stone quays, steps and the Jōyatō lantern lighthouse are the originals.
- Hayao Miyazaki spent two months here in 2005, and Tomonoura's hills and curving waterfront became Ponyo's town.
- Sea bream is the local obsession — grilled, simmered, raw, pressed into sushi — from a fishery the whole town is built around.
- A temple path climbs to a hilltop view of the whole Inland Sea scattered with islands.
Tai sea bream every way the town knows — sashimi, tai-meshi rice, clear soup — its sacred fish for centuries.
Hōmeishu, the sweet herbal liqueur steeped here since the Edo period, medicinal and moreish.
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