菊川宿(Kikugawa unofficial inn town): old cobbled road is still here

菊川宿(Kikugawa inn town) is an unofficial inn town between Kanaya and Nissaka inn towns. This part includes Kanaya pass, one of the highest peaks in Makinohara Plateau. This plateau covers major part of central Shizuoka prefecture, making itself one of the best and largest green tea producing areas in Japan. This is because after Tokugawa regime was over, new Tokugawa’s samurais, who lost their jobs, became green tea farmers for living and developed this area. 

Let’s take a quick look at the overview.

When you google 菊川(Kikugawa) in Shizuoka prefecture, you will find a couple of places. Be sure to know that Kikugawa unofficial inn town is NOT in Kikugawa city. 
Before entering the inn town, there is a remarkable trail on its way. The restored cobbled road is on old Tokaido trail. And this us fairly long. 
Total length of cobbled road is about 1km. Of this road, 30m length of the road is actually the original cobbled road from Edo period. 
The cobbled road ends here, where you enter Kikugawa unofficial inn town now. 
Kikugawa inn town actually starts right before Koraibashi bridge, which is on the center of the map(I did not circle it). Just stepping off from the inn town, you can see green tea farms. 











Right before Korai bridge, there is a land marker of Tokaido. 






Today, Kikugawa does not have much to entertain us but landscape. 
However, you will soon see the information board about Kikugawa unofficial inn town. According to this board, where the building on the left side of the street view stands today used to be the honjin. In Kikugawa, one blogger wrote that, unless the representative of Kanaya inn town gave permission, no one in Kikugawa were allowed to host any guests overnight. So this Honjin was most likely a rest house just to stop by, during a cup of tea and go. 
Akiha shrine altar, the god of fire protection, is here. 



The whole map of Kikugawa unofficial inn town is here. The map has details of locations and names of establishments including toiya cargo terminal, honjin stopover place etc. 
Another sign about Kikugawa unofficial inn town. There is a stone near this board that explains the origin of the name Kikugawa. 菊(Kiku) is chrysanthemum, and in this area, people used to see stones with chrysanthemum-like patterns. 
The end of the town has a sharp-angled curve. 

The access is challenging. The community bus Kikugawa-Kamiyashiro line from JR Kanaya station is the best. It only takes about 20 minutes to Kikugawa no Sato Kaikan bus stop. Bus services are 5 services a day only. 
 The next stop is 日坂宿(Nissaka inn town). 




References: 

Makinohara Yamamotoen. Visit Suruga. SURUGA marketing and tourist bureau. https://www.visit-suruga.com/en/spot/yamamotoen/54 (Accessed in 4/15/2026)

Stroll map(of Tokaido). AMZ Environment Design Research Office Ltd.  http://shizuoka-tokaido.biz/en/map/index.html (Accessed in 4/12/2026)

Unofficial inn town Kikugawa. Beautiful and Graceful Villages in FUJINOMUNI.(In Japanese: 間の宿　菊川　ふじのくに美しき品格のある邑) https://www.fujinokuni-mura.net/kikugawa/ (In Japanese only. Accessed in 4/15/2026)


Copyright of Google map and street views belongs to Google. 

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