Dazaifu Tenmangu and the Fukuoka countryside

Dazaifu once governed the whole of Kyushu, and its great shrine stands over the grave of Sugawara no Michizane, a scholar and statesman exiled here from Kyoto who died in 903. Worshipped as Tenjin, patron of learning, he draws students from across Japan to pray before entrance exams. Thousands of plum trees fill the grounds, and the one beside the main sanctuary is said to have flown overnight from his Kyoto garden to be with him.

Each option begins and ends in Hakata. In 3 hours you cover the essentials: the shop-lined approach, the arched vermilion bridges over the pond, the ox statues and the main sanctuary. The 8-hour version continues south to Yanagawa, a former castle town where boatmen pole flat-bottomed punts through stone-banked canals under willows. Alternatively, the 10-hour day turns east into the hills for Yufuin, a hot-spring town at the foot of a twin-peaked mountain, with the guide pacing time at each place.

Umegae-mochi is the taste of Dazaifu: thin rice cakes wrapped around sweet red bean paste, stamped with a plum-blossom pattern and grilled to order, best eaten hot from the paper. Visitors rub the heads of the ox statues hoping for sharper minds, and wooden ema plaques crowded with exam wishes hang by the hundreds. Plum blossom peaks from around February into early March, the busiest stretch of the year; weekday mornings feel noticeably calmer.