Beaches in Kyoto
A visual guide from the Kyoto travel guide — see all posters in Visual Guides.
Kyoto Prefecture runs all the way to the Sea of Japan, which surprises most visitors who only ever see the basin. Two hours north of the city the map turns into the Tango Peninsula: a pine-covered sandbar three and a half kilometres long that you can cycle across, coves of pale sand that squeak underfoot when you walk on them, and a west-facing bay where the sun drops straight into the water. The swimming season is short and the trains are infrequent, but the change of scene is total.
Where to swim
Amanohashidate is the famous one, a wooded sandbar across Miyazu Bay with a small swimming beach on its landward side, best seen from Kasamatsu Park or Amanohashidate View Land, where the local ritual is to bend over and look at it upside down between your legs. Kotohikihama in Kyotango has genuine singing sand and strict no-litter, no-smoking rules to keep it that way. Yuhigaura, further west, is a long shallow beach built around its sunsets, with a seaside swing and viewing deck that draw a steady evening crowd.
Getting there and when
The Limited Express Hashidate leaves Kyoto Station and reaches Amanohashidate in roughly two hours, running through onto the Kyoto Tango Railway; the Kyotango beaches are another hour beyond and far easier with a car. The sea is generally open for swimming from mid-July to late August, which is also the only period with lifeguards; outside that window the coast is beautiful, empty and cold. Book August accommodation early. If you only want a swim near the city, Omi-Maiko on Lake Biwa is about forty minutes from Kyoto Station on the JR Kosei line.