A pilgrim's stairway lined with udon and sake
Kotohira, on the island of Shikoku, is a shrine town that has fed and housed pilgrims to Konpira-san, a mountain shrine, for centuries, and its long stone stairway is lined with udon shops, sweet shops and a white-walled sake brewery. Climb to the shrine, then come back down for chewy Sanuki udon, a taste of local sake and a look inside an old kabuki theater. It is about an hour by train from Okayama, a stop on the shinkansen.
The main hall stands at the top of 785 stone steps from the shopping street, and from its terrace you look back over the Sanuki Plain, dotted with small, round hills. Allow one to two hours to go up and back, and wear comfortable shoes.
An udon shop near the foot of the steps, serving Sanuki udon, the firm, chewy noodles of Kagawa, before or after the climb. Try it with just a splash of soy sauce, or with a little strong broth poured over the noodles, the way locals often eat it.
A white-walled sake brewery at the bottom of the approach, its buildings set around a huge camphor tree. A small museum shows how sake has been made here, and you can taste local sake at the shop; anyone who is driving will not be served.
A school where you make your own udon, kneading the dough by stepping on it in time to music, then rolling it out and cutting the noodles. You take your noodles home with you. Booking is required.
A sweet shop by the steps selling kyu-man, small sweet buns shaped like the cones of dried herbs burned in moxibustion, a traditional heat therapy. You can also sit in its tea room for a rest.
Inside the shrine grounds, under large white umbrellas, sit the stalls of the five families long allowed to trade within the shrine. They sell kamiyo-ame, a flat amber candy that you break into pieces with the small hammer that comes with it.
The oldest surviving kabuki theater in Japan, a wooden playhouse from the Edo period. You can go down into the space under the stage, where men once turned the revolving stage by hand, and walk the hanamichi, the raised walkway through the audience that actors use for their entrances. It cannot be visited during the April kabuki season or on event days.