Japanese and foreign residents of the Kanto region head for Izu to seek that elusive thing, "the real Japan."

Only two hours southwest of Tokyo, this slender peninsula seems a world away from the modernized, Westernized environment of the capital. It is a region of hot springs and isolated fishing villages, rice fields, forested hills and beaches of white sand. Visitors stroll along streets lined with traditional wooden or tile-and-plaster houses, which, in small towns such as Matsuzaki on Izu's west coast or Shimoda on the peninsula's east, have not yet completely given way to concrete; and no doubt, being near the sea, they sample that most Japanese of dishes, fresh sashimi.

But Izu has not always been the backwater it is today. In the mid 19th century, it was at the heart of Japan's burgeoning relations -- after 200 years of isolationism -- with the outside world. And the relics of that era are numerous. Visitors can explore the pretty Meiji Era Iwashina School in Matsuzaki, with its Western-style balcony and banisters; they can attend Shimoda's weekend-long Black Ships Festival in May, which commemorates the "opening up" of Japan by Commodore Matthew Perry; and they ought to abandon sashimi for steak, since it was events in Izu that first gave meat a significant place in the Japanese diet.