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Mariko-juku, the twentieth of the fifty-three stations along the Tōkaidō road in Suruga Ward, was one of the smallest on the Tōkaidō. It's a 30-minute bus ride from JR Shizuoka Station, with row-houses from the Edo Period and the aforementioned long-established Chojiya tororojiru restaurant. 

The post station is the subject of a classic ukiyo-e print by Ando Hiroshige. 

The neighbourhood is also home to Sumpu Takumishuku, a try-it-yourself facility for traditional crafts and can be previewed here.

 The Toro archaeological site in Suruga Ward dates back to the late Yayoi period in the first century. 

The remains were discovered in 1943 by workers constructing a World War Two munitions plant, excavated in 1947 and 1948 and re-excavated between 1999 and 2004. 

Today, the site has reproductions of ancient pit-houses and high-floored granaries as used in the 3rd and 4th centuries B.C., along with reconstructed rice paddies and associated canals and waterways. The site is preserved as a National Historic Monument with a museum displaying artefacts unearthed in the dig.

The Miho Peninsula in city's Shimizu Ward features Miho no Matsubara, a seven-kilometre stretch of the seashore is lined with pine trees designated as one of the New Three Views of Japan and went onto the World Heritage List in 2013.

© Ian Hughes 2017