Your guide meets you at JR Yufuin Station. From the station plaza, the perfectly cone-shaped Mount Yufu — known as “Bungo Fuji” and standing at 1,584 metres — rises directly ahead. Your guide explains the mountain and the basin landscape that stretches out before you as the tour begins.
Walking towards Yunotsubo Street, Yufuin's main road, you'll find cafés and food stalls lining both sides. Your guide's choices: freshly fried croquettes, matcha gelato where you choose the intensity, and warm canelé straight from the oven. Eating as you walk while Mount Yufu grows larger with every step — that's what makes this street special.
At the end of the road lies Lake Kinrin, a small lake with a circumference of about 400 metres, said to have been named after the golden shimmer of fish scales in the evening sun. The reflections of trees and mountains on the water are stunning in every season. Your guide walks you around the shore, explaining the origins of the lake and the shrines that surround it.
On the way back, you won't retrace your steps. Your guide leads you along the Oita River — a quiet path with almost no tourists, where rice paddies stretch towards Mount Yufu rising in the distance. This is the basin scenery that defines Yufuin. Your guide shares how this landscape has been preserved over the years.
