Shiga Prefecture

A vacation in Shiga Prefecture revolves around water: Lake Biwa, Japan's largest lake, covers roughly one-sixth of the prefecture's area and supplies drinking water to millions of people in Kyōto and Osaka. Along its shores you'll find a castle preserved in its original form, merchant towns with canals, and a mountain monastery that shaped Japanese Buddhism. And all of it is just minutes from Kyōto.

Landscape and Location

Shiga is a landlocked prefecture east of Kyōto. Lake Biwa, about 670 square kilometers (260 square miles) in size and several million years old, ranks among the oldest lakes in the world. Mountains rise all around it: the Hira range and Mount Hiei to the west, the Suzuka Mountains to the east, and Mount Ibuki to the north, on whose slopes medicinal herbs grow. Ōtsu and Kusatsu lie on the southern shore; Ōmihachiman, Higashiōmi, Hikone, and Nagahama on the eastern shore; Takashima to the west; and the hill country of Kōka to the south.

Sights in Shiga Prefecture

Hikone Castle is one of only five castles designated as National Treasures. Its white main keep, dating from 1622, stands on a hill above the lake, with Genkyū-en below it, a landscape garden with a tea pavilion. The town has a mascot known across the country: Hikonyan, a cat in a samurai helmet. On Mount Hiei, on the border with Kyōto, you'll find Enryaku-ji, founded in the 8th century and the mother temple of the Tendai school; many founders of later schools studied here. In Ōtsu, you can visit Ishiyama-dera, where Murasaki Shikibu is said to have begun writing The Tale of Genji, as well as Mii-dera with its famous bell. At the Miho Museum near Kōka, a building by I. M. Pei, hidden away in the mountains, displays art from around the world.

Towns on the Lake

Ōmihachiman was a town of Ōmi merchants, whose business principle of "good for the seller, good for the buyer, good for society" is still quoted today. A canal lined with warehouses and willows invites you to take a boat ride through the reeds. Nagahama is home to the Kurokabe glass shops in old warehouses and is the departure point for ferries to Chikubu Island, with its temple and shrine. Higashiōmi is known for Eigen-ji temple and its autumn foliage, Takashima for Shirahige Shrine, whose red torii stands in the lake, and for the Metasequoia Avenue in Makino. Kōka is, along with Iga, the second great ninja homeland, and the pottery village of Shigaraki in the same area is known for ceramic tanuki figures that stand outside restaurants all over Japan.

Food and Drink

Funa-zushi is a very old form of sushi: crucian carp from the lake are fermented in rice for months and have a strong, cheese-like flavor. Ōmi beef is one of Japan's three great wagyu brands and has been raised in Ōmihachiman since the 19th century. Ayu and Biwa trout also come from the lake. Nagahama is known for yaki-saba-sōmen, grilled mackerel over noodles, and Ōmihachiman for red konnyaku. Shiga has more than 30 sake breweries, and tea from Asamiya in the south comes from one of the country's oldest growing regions.

Activities on the Water

Cyclists can circle the lake on the Biwaichi route, about 200 kilometers (125 miles), one of the most popular cycling tours in Japan. Beaches such as Ōmi-maiko on the western shore invite you to swim and kayak in summer. A cable car takes you up to Biwako Terrace on a peak in the Hira Mountains, where you can sit on loungers high above the lake. In winter, you can ski on Mount Ibuki and in the Hira Mountains.

Getting There and Best Time to Visit

Ōtsu is only about ten minutes from Kyōto by JR train, and you can reach Nagahama and Hikone on the Biwako Line in about an hour; the Shinkansen stops at Maibara. The prefecture has no airport of its own. The best times to visit are considered to be spring, with cherry blossoms at Hikone Castle and along the Kaizu-Osaki shore, and autumn, with fall foliage at Eigen-ji and on Mount Hiei. In summer, you can enjoy the fireworks over the lake and the Birdman competition in Hikone, in which homemade flying machines glide off a platform into the water. If you want to combine several destinations, you can base yourself in Kyōto and explore Shiga on day trips.