Mitarai used to flourish as an important port town where marine travelers stayed to wait for favorable tides and winds. The area was registered as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Historic Buildings in 1994. Due to its small area, the land was reclaimed several times, so small and big merchant houses, tea houses, lodgings for travelers, residences, Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples are intermixed and the narrow backstreets are designed in a grid-like pattern.
A big wharf, a stone arched bridge and a tall stone lantern, which were indispensable for the people’s daily life, still remain today.
Since the Mitarai area’s formation in the middle of the mid-17th century, the town had been a relay point for the marine transportation of the Seto Inland Sea for more than 200 years until the 1950s, so we can trace back to its development and its transition.
Local guides are kind enough to explain the history and culture. Guides speak only Japanese.

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