A walking tour of the Izu Peninsula, an hour from Tokyo by bullet train, where tradition meets tranquillity

“Jumbo?” asks the kimonoed room attendant, perky yet deferential, looking me up and down. “Jumbo!” she decides, then disappears and returns a minute later, doffing her slippers before stepping back into the tatami-matted room bearing a yukata, the cotton gown worn in traditional Japanese inns, in a size more suited to my height.

She bustles to open a sliding door and show me my haori (a jacket to be worn over the yukata), my obi (the belt with which to tie it) and little white socks with a separate big toe to suit the wearing of thong-style indoor slippers. These are all to be donned before descending to geother­mally heated baths with views of the Pacific, to ease the aches arising from a day spent on foot.

Then she pours a welcoming cup of tea, invites me to enjoy a small wrapped snack left on the low, lacquered table and bustles out again, bowing as she goes.

It’s not only the opportunity to follow little-walked tracks along a crumpled coast­line, or through a mountainside beech forest, down to some ancient temple, that makes Japan seem almost purpose-built for a walk­ing holiday, but also this sort of stimulating engagement with the culture. Shopping for inscrutable picnic-lunch ingredients in shiny mini-marts and learning how to tackle multi-course evening menus of local seafood presented in a kaleidoscope of specialised tableware are also part of the pleasure.