Mikuni-minato三国湊

Low two-storey houses with lattice fronts in the local kagura-date style: a gabled main house set end-on to the street, with a flat-fronted section added in front. Start at Machinokura, a small museum of shipping and literature with a short film, and buy the ¥200 joint ticket.

Next door is the Former Kishina House, home of timber merchants and the best kagura-date house open to visitors, with an earth-floored passage paved in Shakudani stone that turns blue-green when wet.

The Morita family were shipowners who saw the end of sail coming and opened a bank in 1894. This head office, finished in 1920, is classical outside and inside a double-height banking hall under carved white plaster ceilings; Sakai calls it Fukui's oldest reinforced-concrete building. A registered cultural property, and free.

A white five-storey octagonal tower copying the 1879 Ryūshō school, renewed in June 2023. Kitamae-bune votive ship paintings, trade documents, a 6.5 m Mikuni Festival warrior doll, and an observation deck over the river mouth.

A Shingon temple founded in 1375. The main hall, Kannon hall and gate are Important Cultural Properties, the Edo-period garden is a national Place of Scenic Beauty, and the treasure hall holds a National Treasure gong. Some paintings are shown only in May and October.

A stone training wall designed by the Dutch engineer George Arnold Escher (the artist M.C. Escher's father) and built from 1878 with Dutch fascine foundations, the first in Japan. Extended to 927 m, it still works, and is an Important Cultural Property.

Nearby, the old pleasure quarter of Demura keeps its lanes and bridges; Uoshirō, a Meiji geisha house, is now a seafood restaurant. End the day in the sea-view bath at Yuapōto, looking over the river mouth at sunset.