Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine — Attraction in Oda

Guess I’ll be the lone foreigner voice of dissent. The ONLY mine shaft you can enter without a guide is about 500 meters long, has very few informative signs (Japanese or English), and can be finished in 15 minutes. There are many more on the town map, but those are simply inaccessible former mine shafts.

There is one more you can enter only with a tour; we reserved the tour but it was cancelled because a single tree had fallen on the path between the mine center and the mine. I guess no one in the park had a chainsaw, nor could we have just walked around or over it.

The town IS pretty. Then again, I live in central Japan and have seen just as nice in Takayama, Gujo-Hachiman, and many “Juku” towns. It’s hardly unique. And that map… once again, it listed about 15-20 stores in town. Four were open: a tofu shop, a local snack maker (2 items only, which weren’t bad), a TINY souvenir place, and one (admittedly cool) restaurant and store.

We were done in under 2 hours and had almost no lasting memories. There’s nothing wrong with this place, but it does NOT meet my expectations of a “world heritage site”. There simply isn’t enough here to see or do to justify that label. If you go and expect nothing at all, it’s ok. The museum is nice. If you go and expect “world heritage”…. Well, you’ll find why this is one of the lesser visited...

The mines itself did not take more than 20 minutes to cover. Lighting inside was a little dim, and unless you are super interested in geology and history of mines, it can be quite limited as a sightseeing spot. The interior of the mine was extremely cooling going to as low as 10degrees and this was in pre-summer. If you show your passport at the payment counter, you can get in relatively cheaply. The light hike up from the souvenir shop itself was quite nice with sufficient shady areas to shield one from the pre-summer heat. There were a few ruins and old buildings along the way to check out if you like that kind of thing. Although I speak Japanese, the lady at the souvenir shop was extremely kind and insisted on guiding me in english. Tops for omotenashi! I managed to park at the parking lot near the souvenir shop which is the nearest...

We visited this place on 8 october 2023. The day was little bit rainy but didn't interrupt our visit to this UNESCO World heritage site.

We started our journey from Yamaguchi city. The way to Shimane was also nice and enjoyable.

It was a guided tour. First, we visited the art museum. It is recommended to visit before you go to the site. You can know the history thoroughly. Then it will be easy to you to visualize the 500 years old silver mine civilization.

The place is quite thrilling full with history. You can see 500 years ago Barbara shop, the house of Samurai, old house and court building. Here, everything was kept as you can imagine yourself and go back 500 years ago.

Although we can not visit the actual mine area the trip was worthy as well. Strongly...