Sōka is famous for its rice crackers. The senbei makers of the city, just north of Tokyo, have produced the crisp, soy-flavoured snacks for generations, and the shops by the station sell them fresh, grilled over charcoal.
For a ride on the Izu skyline and the Jōgasaki coast, this is a plain finish. The roads are straight and busy, with lights and lanes, and the surface is good. The area is crossed by expressways and railway lines, and the landscape is low, with the horizon marked only by apartment blocks. But there is a quiet charm in the canals and fields that survive between the housing estates, and the roads along the river banks are pleasant at dusk.
Sōka has a famous avenue. Matsubara, a long walk beside the old Nikkō highway, is lined with pine trees, and it was a stage on the road that the poet Bashō walked at the start of his great journey to the north in 1689. It is a gentle, shaded route, now a park, with a bridge and tea houses. Yashio, to the south, is a newer town, built mostly in the second half of the twentieth century to house commuters, and it has a large park with a lake.
Fuel is easy, with stations along the main roads and supermarkets close by. The restaurants of Sōka are modest, and the senbei shops are the most interesting stop. A tea house on the Matsubara avenue serves green tea and sweets in the traditional way. The Tobu Skytree line runs from Sōka to central Tokyo, and the stations are modern.
Walk the pine avenue if you have time. The shade and the stones underfoot are a reminder of how old this road is.