Wakayama: Osaka In Autumn 2026, Part 2

We took a long train ride down from Amanohashidate to Wakayama. Wakayama is a peninsula that boasts of unfettered nature and the historical Kumano Kodō pilgrimage route. I envisioned ancient temples, stretches of countryside and small towns. So as we exited Wakayama station, I wasn't expecting to come face to face with a Louis Vuitton store. It’s quite the bustling city centre! 

But as we collected our rental car and drove away from the city centre, orchards and other farmland gradually came into view.

We swopped landscapes of large orange globes of persimmon in Amanohashidate for the smaller mikan (Japanese tangerines) of Wakayama. 

As we passed towns and the plots of farmland, we stopped intermittently along interesting spots to stretch our legs. We bought a box of mikan (2kg for 900 yen) from Morimoto Farm 森本農園, whose owner was a bit surprised to receive tourists.

We explored Momijidani Teien Garden and Wakayama Castle. The gardens are free to enter despite the signage, and a couple was taking wedding pictures as we came.

We also stopped at Bandoko Garden, a private garden by the coast.

Despite the reviews of people who visited Taniino Orchards 谷井農園, it seemed like most people don’t. The staff were really, really surprised to see us turn up. Most of their customers just order their mikan drinks online, as we later learnt.

There’s no sign posts or storefront to speak of, just a small quiet unnamed building in the corner, sun-kissed mikan trees in the soil, and not a single person to be found anywhere. We walked up the pavement to the strong sweet whiffs of cooking fruits, which came across almost caramel-like. There’s definitely some activity going on here. We poked around the ground floor of the building, but it was devoid of any people. The lights were on but there was nobody home. So where was the smell coming from?

We rather hesitantly climbed the stairs to the second floor (with flashbacks of Uketsu’s Strange Houses dancing in my head), and we found the most incongruent scene: a modern office with a lot of people in formal office-wear. Huh. Our unplanned presence threw everybody into a bit of a tizzy. It’s not a fruit shop/juice joint after all. It’s more like their head office. There was a bit of language barrier as well, but they finally understood that we just dropped by to buy a couple of bottles of their Mikan juices. They graciously invited us in to sit inside and wait while they fetch some bottles for us.

Each bottle costs about $10 USD (!!) and is about 100ml. Is this one of those Japanese things that’s meant to be gifted to business partners? It’s great, but the cost is really steep for personal consumption.

We drove on until the next town of Tanabe, where we took a lunch break. The breaded pork cutlet at Yoshihei Inari was terrific. The breaded exterior is wonderfully crisp and - surprisingly - even fluffy.

We visited Senjojiki Rock Plateau (千畳敷), Sandanbeki Cave and Hashiguiiwa Rocks before arriving at Hotel Urashima for the night.

Senjojiki Rock Plateau (千畳敷)

The main draw of Hotel Urashima is their onsen, some of which runs in the caverns under the hotel and on the beach. It was a pretty cool experience, but truthfully, our experience in these onsen were mid at best. It was pretty crowded with many other guests, and the onsen was quite dated. And somehow, there were mosquitos. I prefer my onsen experience to be more peaceful and clean.

While the rooms were decent and large (they were newly furbished), the rest of the hotel also did show its age.

We got up early the next morning to get to Nachi Falls, the Seiganto-ji Temple and the Kumano-Nachi Grand Shrine. We had to wake early to beat the crowd, but this was worth our effort.

The entrance ticket is a piece of token that you can keep with you.

A fountain under the waterfall allows you to take a sip from the waterfall with a sakazuki.

Over at the Grand Shrine, you write out a wish on a wooden token and carry it through a hollowed-out tree.

We stopped by Ōyunohara Sanctuary on our loop of Wakayama. The largest tori gate in Japan, Kumano Hongu Taisha Otorii, is on the sanctuary grounds.

Nearby is 宮ずし, a sushi lunch spot. It was another good meal. The sushi’s fresh as usual, and the seared Kumamo beef was well-marbled and melted in our mouths even when served chilled.

The last stop in our Wakayama itinerary was the town of Koyasan (Mount Koya), and we reached just after lunch around 3pm. It’s a pretty large town, with several temples in the area. The most well-known one is probably the head temple Kongobu-ji. 

And in the cemetery Okuno-in, where we took a quiet evening walk, we came across the final resting place of Nobunaga Oda. Anyone who had spent as much of their childhood playing Samurai Warriors (as I did) would need no introduction to him. 

After all the driving around we did on the empty roads, this would have been a nice town to set up for the night, especially when some of the temples are offering a stay. It would have been quite the cultural experience.

If I could do one thing over again, it would be to tour Wakayama over three days instead of two. We optimistically (foolishly) thought that 4 hours of driving per day is manageable. It turned out to be quite a punishing schedule. Daylight was already in short supply in autumn, and we had to rush from attraction to attraction. And despite our best efforts to avoid driving at the night, we had to navigate through the mountains after sunset. 

On our way down the mountains, we had quite a bit of a nerve-wrecking experience on a single lane, involving another car coming in the opposite direction while navigating a sharp turn with no roadside barriers between the road and empty air. We eventually inched our cars past each other, with our side mirrors folded in and my front car tyre precipitously close to the edge. 

It was a road as narrow as this, but late at night, along a 100 degrees bend, with no barrier and with another car trying to make its way past you too. 

Not a single person in the history of humankind had ever said to be pleased to see gridlock - except me. When we finally got down the mountains and into Nara city’s traffic, I felt immense relief at the familiar sights of city traffic once again.

Our rental Toyota Aqua shone here in the mountains. It was a wonderful car powerful enough to get us through the incline. And as a hybrid, its fuel economy was unreal: a 3/4 tank of petrol got us the 5 full days of driving going through mountainous terrains of Wakayama and Nara. And thank goodness for its small size: when our car was inching past another car on a single lane, I don't think a car larger than ours could've made it.  

Wakayama was a wonderful experience, despite our scheduling mishaps. In future, I wouldn't schedule driving more than 2-3 hours per day. For people planning to visit Wakayama, this is one place where you would need to allocate more than 48 hours to see the best of this wonderful peninsula.