Karatsu — Castle & Yobuko Squid Market

Karatsu City lies 42 km northwest of Saga City on the coast of Karatsu Bay, reached by a 1 hr 15 min ride on the JR Karatsu Line from Saga Station. The city pairs a compact hilltop castle with Yobuko, a fishing port famed for live squid sashimi, about 30 minutes further by local bus. A typical day starts at Karatsu Castle, a rebuilt keep overlooking the bay and pine-covered Nijinomatsubara coastline, with exhibits on the Karatsu Kunchi festival's giant lacquered floats. From the castle, the old merchant district around Karatsu Shrine and the Kunchi Exhibition Hall is a short walk, good for a mid-morning stroll through Edo-period streets and Karatsu-yaki pottery studios. After lunch, buses from Karatsu Bus Center run to Yobuko roughly one to two times per hour, where the morning market (Yobuko Asaichi) operates daily and the port's restaurants serve ika-no-ikizukuri, squid sliced and served still moving on the plate. The nearby Nagoya Castle ruins, once Toyotomi Hideyoshi's staging base for the Korean invasions, make a worthwhile add-on for travellers with a rental car, since they sit between Karatsu and Yobuko without convenient bus access. Karatsu is pleasant year-round, but November's Karatsu Kunchi festival draws large crowds for its parade of decorated floats, and spring or summer are best for the freshest live squid catches in Yobuko. Rental car travellers can combine all three sites in a single loop in about the same total time as the train-and-bus combination, without waiting on bus schedules.