Ine no Funaya

photo by AsPJT · CC0

photo by Puchi-masashi · CC BY-SA 4.0

230 boathouse homes on the sea: the ground floor is for the boat, the floor above is for living.

The funaya are two-storey houses built with the ground floor opening directly onto the bay (a sloping floor for hauling the fishing boat out of the water) and the upper floor used as living quarters: about 230 can still be counted along the five kilometres of Ine Bay, almost all of them still in use. From land you see only their backs; the front, with the openings onto the sea through which the boats go in and out, can be seen only from the water, which is why the boat tour of the bay (伊根湾めぐり) is how most visitors really discover them.

A fishing village on the northern coast of the Tango Peninsula, which took this form between the Edo and Meiji periods. An Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings since 22 July 2005, in the ‘fishing village’ category, the only one in Japan with this designation.

ℹ️ You can explore the village freely, on foot or on a hire bicycle. The boat tour of the bay (伊根湾めぐり遊覧船) leaves every half hour, at :00 and :30, from 9:00 to 16:00 all year round, and takes about 25 minutes: 1,200 yen from age 13, 600 from 6 to 12, one preschool child free per adult. The car park costs 500 yen, 1,000 during Silver Week in September.

🚉 道の駅舟屋の里伊根 · 2 min walk

Sources: ine-kankou.jp · bunka.go.jp · tankai.jp

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