Beppu steams. Walk down almost any street in this city on the east coast of Kyushu and you will see white plumes rising from vents, drains and rooftops, because the ground below is boiling. With some two thousand hot-spring sources, among the most of any place in Japan, Beppu produces more hot water than almost anywhere in the world, and the city is organized around it, with public bathhouses, steaming ponds and a faint smell of sulfur everywhere.
The best-known attractions are the Jigoku, the Hells, a group of spectacular hot springs meant for viewing rather than bathing. One is a bright, blood-red pond; another, a milky, cobalt-blue; another spouts a geyser at intervals. Locals cook with the steam, using it to steam vegetables, eggs and pudding at the Kannawa district, a method called jigoku-mushi. At the old Takegawara bathhouse, built in 1879, you can be buried in warm sand, a Beppu specialty, and the experience is oddly relaxing.
Geography makes the riding. Behind the city rise the volcanoes of the Beppu-Yufuin region, including Mount Tsurumi, and the road known as the Yamanami Highway climbs from here through highland grassland toward Mount Aso, the huge caldera in the heart of Kyushu. The route offers wide views, open ridges of silver grass and gentle curves, and the surface is generally good, with relatively little traffic outside holidays. The area around Yufuin, a hot-spring town with a lake and a lively tourist street, makes a pleasant stop.
Beppu is a city of over a hundred thousand, so fuel, convenience stores and restaurants are everywhere, and Oita, a short ride south, is bigger still. Local food includes toriten, a fried chicken dish, and dango-jiru, a dumpling soup. The best months are April for cherry blossom, and October and November for color on the mountains; summer is hot and humid, with typhoon risk in late summer and autumn. Winter brings occasional snow on the high roads, which can close them, and the steaming town is a pleasure at that time of year.