Over three thousand years ago, Jomon people in northern Japan arranged stones into circles on a terrace at the foot of Mount Iwaki, the conical volcano that dominates the Tsugaru plain in Aomori prefecture. The Omori Katsuyama stone circle is one of these monuments, with a ring of standing and placed stones that may have been used for rituals, burials or marking the seasons. It is part of the Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan, inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2021, which celebrates a culture of hunter-gatherers who settled in permanent villages and made pottery for over ten thousand years.
The site is quiet and open, with views toward Iwaki and the surrounding countryside. The Jomon people lived from fishing, hunting and gathering nuts, and their pottery, decorated with rope patterns, gave the period its name. Nearby, Sannai-Maruyama in Aomori city is the largest Jomon site and has a museum and reconstructed buildings.
The Tsugaru plain is apple country. Hirosaki, a castle town of over one hundred and seventy thousand people, is the centre of Japan's apple production, and in autumn the orchards are full of red fruit. Hirosaki castle is famous for its cherry blossoms in late April and early May. The town has fuel, restaurants and accommodation.
For riders, the Iwaki Skyline is a toll road that climbs the volcano in dozens of hairpins to a car park, from where a chairlift and path lead to the summit. The roads around the plain are flat and quiet, and the coast to the west, along the Sea of Japan, offers dramatic cliffs and the Shirakami mountains, a UNESCO-listed beech forest. Winters here are snowy and long, so the riding season runs from late spring to autumn. Try the local apple juice, cider and pie, and the hearty soups of Tsugaru.