In 1604 an English pilot named William Adams, shipwrecked in Japan a few years earlier and taken into the service of the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, built the first Western-style sailing ships in Japan at the mouth of the river in Itō. Adams, known in Japan as Miura Anjin, became a samurai and an adviser to the shogun, and his story inspired the novel Shōgun. Itō remembers him with a festival every August and a memorial by the river.
Itō is a hot-spring town on the east coast of the Izu peninsula, with dozens of inns, public baths and a long promenade along the bay. The Tōkaikan, an old wooden inn on the river, has been preserved and opened to the public, with three storeys of carved wood, tatami rooms and a lookout tower.
South of the town, the Jōgasaki coast is a dramatic shoreline of black lava cliffs formed by an eruption of Mount Ōmuro, a perfectly shaped cinder cone that rises behind the coast. A suspension bridge spans a gorge above the waves, and the coastal path is spectacular. Mount Ōmuro's grass slopes are burned every year in a spring ritual, leaving the cone black for a few weeks.
The beach in Itō is a long, sandy strip in front of the town, open for swimming in summer, with calm water and lifeguards. It is a good place for a dip after a day on the Izu Skyline.
Route 135, the coastal road, is often congested, especially on weekends and holidays. The roads into the hills behind Itō are quieter, winding up to the Izu Skyline and the plateau of Izu Kōgen. In town, the shops along the harbour sell himono, fish split and dried in the sea air, grilled for breakfast all over Izu. Buy a pack for later, top up the tank on the way out, and save the onsen for when the riding is done.