On a headland overlooking the Ariake Sea, at the southern tip of the Shimabara Peninsula in Nagasaki prefecture, the grassy ruins of Hara Castle mark the scene of one of the darkest episodes in Japanese history. In the winter of 1637 to 1638, thousands of peasants, many of them Christians, rose up against heavy taxation and religious persecution, and took refuge in the abandoned castle under the leadership of a charismatic teenager, Amakusa Shirō. The shogunate besieged the castle for months with a huge army, and when it finally fell, almost all the defenders, including women and children, were killed.
The rebellion led the shogunate to tighten its ban on Christianity and to close Japan to most foreign contact for more than two centuries. Those who kept their faith did so in secret, becoming the Hidden Christians, and the remains of Hara Castle are part of the UNESCO listing of Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region, added in 2018. Today the site is quiet, with stone walls, grassy terraces, a few monuments and a statue of Amakusa Shirō, with views over the sea to the hills of Amakusa.
The Shimabara Peninsula is dominated by the volcano Unzen, which rises in the centre, its slopes covered in forests and dotted with hot springs. In 1991, a pyroclastic flow from the Fugen-dake peak killed more than forty people, including journalists and volcanologists, and the area still bears the scars of that eruption. The road that climbs to the Unzen hot spring town and the Nita pass offers some of the best riding in the area, with tight bends, steep gradients and spectacular views over the sea and the volcano.
The coastal road around the peninsula is gentle and scenic, with little traffic and views over the sea. Shimabara, about twenty kilometres away, is the main town, with a reconstructed castle, carp swimming in the town's canals, and fuel and shops. Ferries run from Shimabara across the Ariake Sea to Kumamoto, a convenient way to continue a trip through Kyushu. The local speciality is guzoni, a hearty soup with rice cakes, said to have sustained the rebels during the siege.