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Kamiyama

— Tokushima's mountain town of fibre optics and artists

localOff the trail — and worth it

A Tokushima mountain valley that answered its own decline by laying cable to every house and choosing who to invite in. A roadside station, a shrine on the hill behind it and a hot spring by the river all sit within a short walk of each other.

FromTokushima Station
~1 hrDirect bus from Tokushima
Get off atKamiyama Onsen-mae bus stop (Tokushima Bus, Kamiyama Line)
On foot
Kamiyama

Directions ↗

The sweet spot

Kamiyama is not a sight. There is no preserved street to photograph, and the famous half of the story is invisible — it happens inside offices and rented houses. What a visitor can actually see is the older layer underneath: a shrine on the hill that gave the province its name, sculptures left standing in the woods by residency artists, and a bath down by the river. Those parts are open, and on a weekday you will have the paths largely to yourself.

Where it is

13 more notes in Tokushima · open the map →

What to look for — in walking order

Motenashi-no-Yakatathe roadside station's produce hall, stacked with yuzu, mushrooms and vegetables grown up the valley
Kami-Ichinomiya Oawa Shrinea wooded flight of steps on the hill behind the road, one of the claimants to first shrine of Awa
Oawayama Art Walksculptures left among the trees by residency artists, on paths open through the year
Kamiyama Onsenthe town's bathhouse beside the Ayukui River, a few minutes back down the road

How to actually get there

Tokushima Station stand 13 → Kamiyama Onsen-mae (Tokushima Bus, Kamiyama Line, about 1 hr).
Kamiyama Onsen-mae → Michi-no-Eki Onsen-no-Sato Kamiyama (about 4 min on foot along Route 438).
The roadside station → Kami-Ichinomiya Oawa Shrine and the Oawayama paths (about 5 min on foot, uphill).

Direct bus from Tokushima Station: Tokushima Bus runs the Kamiyama Line from stand 13 at Tokushima Station, out through Fuchu and Ishii and up the valley to Kamiyama Onsen-mae in about an hour. The same bus carries on to Yorii-naka and Kamiyama Koko-mae. Departures are spread across the day rather than frequent.
Back down to Tokushima: The same line runs down the valley from Kamiyama Onsen-mae, with the last departure in the evening on weekdays and a thinner timetable at weekends and on holidays. Tokushima Bus publishes the full stop-by-stop table as a PDF on its own site; check it before you leave the city rather than after.

Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

Kamiyama fills a long valley on the Ayukui River, its settlements strung along the water with wooded ridges close on both sides. The town ran fibre optic cable to every household while it was still emptying out, and what followed was not a tourism campaign. An artist residency had been running here for years, so the place was already in the habit of housing strangers. A local NPO turned that habit into a method: work out which trades the valley was missing, then go and find people to fill them. Software firms took offices in old houses, and a technical college opened in the hills.

How to enjoy it

Buses from Tokushima start early and the last one down leaves in the evening, but the gaps through the middle of the day are long, so plan against the timetable rather than the clock. Give the hill an hour: the shrine steps and the art paths run into one another, and the NPO that runs the residency suggests walking them between morning and early afternoon. Leave the bath until last, when there is nothing left to catch but the bus.

Background & history

The shrine above the road, Kami-Ichinomiya Oawa, is one of several claiming the rank of first shrine of Awa province. Its deity is said to have carried millet — awa — into this country, which is where the province took its name. The artist residency began in 1999, bringing a handful of artists from abroad each year to live and make work in the valley. Fibre optic cable reached every household in 2004. In 2023 a new technical college opened in the hills above the town, teaching design alongside engineering.

Before you go

Cash: Tokushima Bus publishes a fare table for the Kamiyama Line on its site, so check it rather than assuming a flat fare. The shrine and the art paths cost nothing to walk. The roadside station and the bathhouse are charged separately.
Good to know: The art paths are unlit woodland tracks and the shrine steps are steep and often damp, so both want daylight and neither is much good in rain. Route 438 through the valley is narrow, and in bad weather the bus is the fragile part of the plan.
Another way: Tokushima Bus also runs the Sanagochi Line towards Kamiyama from the same station by a different valley, worth checking when the Kamiyama Line times do not suit. By car, Route 438 climbs from Ishii and takes roughly an hour from the city.
After you get off: From Kamiyama Onsen-mae the roadside station is about four minutes on foot along Route 438, on the river side. The bathhouse stands at the stop itself, which makes it easy to do the walking first and come back down to it.