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Fujisawa is a city of about 440,000 people on Sagami Bay in Kanagawa Prefecture, at the heart of the Shōnan coast south-west of Tokyo. It is best known for the island of Enoshima, with its shrines, sea caves and lighthouse tower, and for the long sandy beaches of Katase and Kugenuma.
In the Edo period Fujisawa prospered as Fujisawa-shuku, a post station on the Tōkaidō highway between Edo and Kyoto, and it grew quickly after its railway station opened in 1887. Enoshima joined the city in 1947, and the island hosted the sailing races of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
Visitors cross the Benten Bridge to climb Enoshima past its shrines to the Samuel Cocking Garden and the Sea Candle, and explore the Iwaya Caves. On the mainland they swim and surf at Kugenuma, see the New Enoshima Aquarium, visit Ryūkō-ji and Yugyō-ji and ride the little Enoden trains.
Enoshima Shrine on the island of Enoshima in Fujisawa is counted among the three great shrines of Benzaiten in Japan. It is made up of three shrines, Hetsunomiya, Nakatsunomiya and Okutsunomiya, climbing the island, and its Hōanden hall keeps two old statues of the goddess Benzaiten.
The Enoshima Iwaya Caves are two sea caves at the far side of the island of Enoshima in Fujisawa, carved by the waves in ancient times and long used by Buddhist monks for training. The First Cave runs 153 metres into the rock and the Second Cave 56 metres, and both can be entered with a ticket.
The Enoshima Sea Candle is the observation lighthouse at the top of the island of Enoshima in Fujisawa, Japan's first privately run lighthouse. The present tower first shone on 1 January 2003 and stands 60 metres tall, with its light 107 metres above the sea and wide views over Sagami Bay.
The Samuel Cocking Garden on the top of Enoshima is a city garden on the site of the botanical garden of Samuel Cocking, an Irish merchant of Yokohama who bought land on the island in 1880. The remains of his greenhouse were found in 2002 and are now on show, and the garden surrounds the Sea Candle.
Katase Nishihama Beach is the long sandy beach facing Enoshima in Fujisawa, which together with the neighbouring Kugenuma beach forms a curving shore of about 1 km on Sagami Bay. With more than three million visitors a year, the joined beaches attract more bathers than any other in Japan.
Kugenuma Beach is the beach of the Kugenuma district of Fujisawa on Sagami Bay, where a bathing beach opened in 1886, the third on the bay after Ōiso and Yuigahama. Facing Enoshima in the east and Mount Fuji in the west, it calls itself the birthplace of Japanese surfing and beach volleyball.
The New Enoshima Aquarium in Fujisawa, known as Enosui, stands on the Katase shore near Enoshima and recreates the sea of Sagami Bay in a huge central tank. It is known for its jellyfish, the world's first permanent whitebait display and a deep-sea corner with the research submarine Shinkai 2000.
Enoshima Yacht Harbour is the marina on the north-east side of Enoshima, built on reclaimed rocky shore from 1961 for the sailing races of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. One of the largest yacht harbours in eastern Japan, it opened to the public after the Games and hosted Olympic sailing again in 2021.
Ryūkō-ji is a Nichiren Buddhist temple in Fujisawa on the site of the old Tatsunokuchi execution ground, where the monk Nichiren was about to be executed but was spared. Founded in 1337, it has a cave where he was held and a five-storey wooden pagoda of 1910, the only one of its kind in Kanagawa.
Yugyō-ji, formally Shōjōkō-ji, is the head temple of the Ji sect of Pure Land Buddhism in Fujisawa, founded in 1325 on the site of an older temple where the monk Ippen had stayed. Its grounds hold a great ginkgo tree said to be about 600 years old, protected as a natural monument by the city.
The Enoshima Electric Railway, known as the Enoden, is a small 10 km railway that links Fujisawa with Kamakura, running past Enoshima and along the coast of Sagami Bay. Its small trains run close to the sea for part of the way, and the line has become a popular sight in itself.
The Enoshima Benten Bridge is the 389-metre bridge that links the island of Enoshima with the Katase district of Fujisawa on the mainland. It replaced an old wooden pier after the Second World War, and walking across it toward the wooded island is the usual way for visitors on foot to arrive.
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