The Takachiho Course
Hakata → Takachiho → Hakata
The Takachiho Course aboard the Seven Stars in Kyushu is a four-day, three-night circular journey from Hakata deep into the mythological heartland of southern Kyushu, weaving together ancient craftsmanship, sacred Shinto sites, and some of Japan's most dramatic volcanic landscapes. Departing from Hakata, the train arcs south through Kumamoto Prefecture before climbing into the mist-laden highlands of Miyazaki, where the town of Takachiho — revered as the birthplace of Japanese mythology — awaits. The journey continues through the vast Aso caldera and concludes with a pilgrimage to one of Shinto's most venerable head shrines in Oita Prefecture before a triumphant return to Hakata.
What distinguishes this course from any other luxury rail experience is the seamless fusion of cultural immersion and sublime comfort. Passengers sleep in handcrafted wood-panelled suites with panoramic windows, dine on multi-course kaiseki and French gastronomy curated by award-winning chefs, and step off the train into experiences that most visitors to Japan never access: a private audience with a Shinto priest at a living myth-site, a night of sacred kagura dance, and a dawn walk beside an active caldera. The train itself — a rolling piece of art designed by the late maestro Eiji Mitooka — carries a maximum of 30 guests, ensuring an intimacy that no hotel can replicate.
This is a journey for those who seek Japan at its most profound: not the Japan of crowded temples and souvenir streets, but the Japan of ancient rites still practiced, of volcanic earth still breathing, and of artisans still pressing inlaid patterns into wet clay by hand, exactly as their ancestors did four centuries ago.
- ✦Sacred night kagura (Yokagura) performance — 800-year-old mythological dance ritual
- ✦Private Shinto priest guided tour of Amano Iwato Shrine, cave of the sun goddess
- ✦Dawn walk through Takachiho Gorge amid basalt cliffs and emerald waterfalls
- ✦Aso Caldera panorama with free-roaming horses on a volcanic grassland plateau
- ✦Exclusive visit to a master kagura mask carver's workshop in Takachiho
- ✦Priest-guided pilgrimage to Usa Jingu — head shrine of 40,000+ Hachiman sanctuaries
- ✦400-year-old Kōda Ware pottery tradition and Higo Zogan metal inlay workshop
Day-by-Day Itinerary
Day 1 — Heritage & Craftsmanship (Hakata → Kumamoto Region)
The journey begins at Hakata Station in Fukuoka, where guests board the Seven Stars amid the quiet ceremony of departure. As the train curves south into Kumamoto Prefecture, the first destination is the Ueno Kiln area near Yatsushiro — home of Kōda Ware (also known as Yatsushiro Ware), a pottery tradition with over 400 years of continuous heritage. First established when master potters were invited to Yatsushiro by the Hosokawa clan lords in the early Edo period, Kōda Ware is defined by its distinctive mishima inlay technique: delicate patterns pressed or carved into soft clay and filled with contrasting white or iron-rich slip to create intricate geometric and floral motifs. Guests are offered the choice of a hands-on Higo Zogan (a refined samurai-era metal inlay art) workshop onboard, or an exclusive guided tour of the historic kiln facility itself. The afternoon unfolds gently as the train moves further south. Lunch features freshly prepared sushi from Yamanaka showcasing seafood from the Genkai Sea, served in the dining car beneath the notes of a live piano performance. Dinner is a Japanese-Italian affair at KAI restaurant in Izumi City, emphasizing wood-fired cooking and the bold flavours of southern Kyushu produce. The night is spent in the comfort of a private suite as the Seven Stars glides toward Miyazaki.
Day 2 — Myth & Sacred Traditions (Takachiho)
Guests disembark near Kirishima-Jingu Station to begin the overland journey into Takachiho by private coach. The morning opens with a refined café experience — aromatic coffee and a view of the stationary Seven Stars against a mountain backdrop — before the coach ascends into the highlands of Miyazaki Prefecture, arriving in Takachiho, the land most deeply entwined with Japanese creation mythology. The first stop is Amano Iwato Shrine, set above the gorge of the Iwato River and believed to enshrine the very cave into which the sun goddess Amaterasu retreated in grief and anger, plunging the world into darkness. A resident Shinto priest guides guests through the East and West shrines, explaining the mythological narrative recorded in the eighth-century chronicles Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, and guests may view the sacred cave from a riverside observation platform. Nearby, a visit to the workshop of master kagura mask carver Mr. Kudo — himself a practising kagura dancer — offers a rare window into the living craft tradition: guests observe as intricate sacred masks are shaped from solid blocks of wood, each destined for use in ritual performance. The overnight stay is at Ryokan Shinsen, a refined traditional inn in Takachiho, with multi-course kaiseki dinner served in a private dining room. The evening's centrepiece is the Yokagura night dance: an authentic performance of the sacred 33-sequence kagura cycle, a ritual folk-dance tradition designated as an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan, which re-enacts the Amaterasu myth through music, costume, and movement passed down through local families for over 800 years.
Day 3 — Nature & Volcanic Landscapes (Takachiho → Aso Region)
The morning begins at Ryokan Shinsen before an early visit to Takachiho Gorge, timed to catch the soft light before the day's visitors arrive. Cut by the Gokase River through columns of basalt formed by ancient lava flows from Mount Aso, the gorge descends 80 to 100 metres through sheer volcanic cliffs draped in moss and fern. A slender waterfall — Manai-no-Taki — spills into emerald waters below, and the mythological resonance of the landscape is palpable: this valley, tradition holds, is where the gods first walked upon the earth. The group then boards the Seven Stars panorama bus for an Aso landscape tour through one of the world's great caldera environments. With a diameter of up to 25 kilometres, the Aso Caldera was formed by four colossal eruptions between 300,000 and 90,000 years ago. The route passes through the Kusasenri grassland at 1,130 metres elevation, where 50 to 80 horses graze freely across an ancient crater floor with steam rising from Nakadake Crater behind them — a scene more reminiscent of Iceland than Japan. The journey continues through the Minami Aso highlands and the Shirakawa Spring region before rejoining the train. Breakfast is a simple, nourishing affair of home-style dishes prepared by Chef Shinobu Chiba; lunch features sandwiches made with fresh local produce from the Kirishima and Kagoshima regions; and dinner is a French gastronomic experience at Restaurant Aréna in Fukuoka.
Day 4 — Shrines & Farewell (Usa → Hakata)
The final morning finds the train in Oita Prefecture. Before returning to Hakata, guests make a pilgrimage to Usa Jingu Shrine, founded in 725 AD and universally recognised as the head shrine of all Hachiman shrines in Japan — a network of more than 40,000 sanctuaries dedicated to the god of war, archery, and the imperial family. Usa Jingu is one of only 17 shrines in Japan entitled to receive imperial envoys, and its distinctive hachiman-zukuri double-roof architectural style was pioneered here. A Shinto priest leads a private guided tour of the vermilion-lacquered precincts, explaining the shrine's historic role in legitimising the imperial line and its unique syncretic Buddhist-Shinto heritage. A hands-on wagashi (traditional Japanese confectionery) making workshop with the owner of Musashiya Sohonten follows — a sweet conclusion to the cultural immersion of the preceding days. A final French-course lunch at La Verveine in Yufu City, featuring prized Oita Wagyu beef and seasonal highland vegetables, precedes the afternoon return by rail to Hakata, where the four-day journey concludes with a closing ceremony aboard the Seven Stars.
Destinations & Highlights
Takachiho, Miyazaki Prefecture
Few places in Japan carry the weight of mythology as heavily as Takachiho. Nestled in the highland mountains of northern Miyazaki at around 500 metres above sea level, this small town is identified in Japan's oldest chronicles — the eighth-century Kojiki and Nihon Shoki — as the site where the sun goddess Amaterasu hid in a cave (Amano Iwato), where her grandson Ninigi descended from heaven to begin the imperial bloodline, and where the gods assembled to perform the first kagura dance to coax Amaterasu back into the world. The Amano Iwato Shrine, set above the rushing Iwato River, enshrines the cave itself; its west precinct requires a special priest-guided tour and the cave can only be viewed from a sacred observation point across the gorge. The Takachiho Gorge — a sinuous ravine of columnar basalt cliffs rising 80–100 metres, carved by the Gokase River through ancient lava fields — is the region's most photographed natural wonder, with the slender Manai-no-Taki waterfall dropping into still emerald pools. The night kagura (Yokagura) cycle performed in Takachiho is an Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan, a 33-dance ritual tradition preserved by local families for over 800 years.
The Aso Caldera, Kumamoto Prefecture
Mount Aso is the defining geographic feature of central Kyushu and one of the world's largest active volcanic systems. The caldera — up to 25 kilometres in diameter and over 100 kilometres in circumference — was created by four catastrophic eruptions between 300,000 and 90,000 years ago. Within it, the five peaks of the Aso volcanic group (including the perpetually active Nakadake crater) rise above a patchwork of grasslands, hot springs, and farming villages that have existed in harmony with the volcano for millennia. The Kusasenri grassland, sitting inside an ancient secondary crater at 1,130 metres, is a lunar-beautiful plateau where horses graze freely and the horizon is framed by volcanic peaks. The noyaki controlled burning tradition, practised here for over 1,000 years each spring, regenerates the grassland ecosystem and is itself a piece of living cultural heritage.
Usa Jingu Shrine, Oita Prefecture
Founded in 725 AD on a forested hillside overlooking the Usa plain in northern Oita, Usa Jingu is the fountainhead of Hachiman worship in Japan — the ancestral source of more than 40,000 subsidiary shrines spread across every prefecture of the country. The shrine's principal deity, Hachiman, was historically venerated as protector of the imperial family and guardian of the nation, and Usa Jingu's authority was such that an eighth-century emperor summoned the deity by palanquin all the way to Nara to bless the construction of Todaiji's Great Buddha. The shrine is also one of the earliest and most important sites of shinbutsu shugo — the syncretic blending of Shinto and Buddhism that shaped Japanese religious culture for over a millennium. Its twin-roofed hachiman-zukuri architectural style, now widely reproduced at Hachiman shrines throughout Japan, was originated here. The vermilion lacquered halls and ancient cedar groves create an atmosphere of rare solemnity.
Kōda (Yatsushiro) Ware, Kumamoto Prefecture
Produced in and around Yatsushiro City in southern Kumamoto since the early seventeenth century, Kōda Ware is one of Kyushu's most refined ceramic traditions. The craft traces its origin to potters brought to the region by the Hosokawa clan lords who ruled Kumamoto during the Edo period, and its signature technique — mishima inlay, in which intricate patterns are carved or stamped into soft clay and filled with contrasting slip before firing — requires extraordinary precision and patience. The resulting wares, typically in subdued celadon, dark iron-glaze, and white slip tones, were prized as tea-ceremony pieces and presentation gifts among the samurai class. The Ueno Kiln, one of the historic production centres, continues to operate today, maintaining direct lineage with the original craft tradition.