VELTRA tours & activities, fun things to do

Great Island Tour

Shodoshima is a beautiful place to spend a relaxing weekend. They have a great bus system and you can get 1 or 2 day passes. However, the buses are not super frequent and it is time consuming to see some great sites that are not in the main area of the Island. This is where the tour comes in. They hit the major highlights all in a day and do the driving and organizing for you! They time the tour perfectly with the arrival of the ferry. Check-in and board the bus and off you go! Start with the monkey park. You can feed the monkeys (thankfully you are protected inside a fenced area as they can get aggressive). You then have a few minutes just to wander around and take pictures. There is also a show with a monkey doing tricks. From there you go to the ropeway. There is a restaurant that uses the ticket machine, making the process very fast and easy. There is also a snack area. You can just stay there and take in the beauty of the gorge or take the ropeway down. The bus will meet you at the bottom. Perfect! You then get a quick few minutes to see a temple built into the rocks and then down to the area where some famous Japanese movie was filmed (think was called 24 eyes). No idea what the movie was about but they turned the site into a cute little shopping village. You can also try soy sauce soft serve. I skipped, but people seemed to be happy with it. Quick stop in the area they make soy sauce. Was a bit surprised we stopped at a shop and not where the museum is located. The final stop is the Olive Garden. Here you can see the olive trees (the first on the Island), do some trick photography, a little shopping, and olive ice cream. Overall,I enjoyed tour. Not too long at any site, both the driver and the guide were professional and great. My only criticism (and this is for every tour I've been on), I wish the guide didn't feel a need to talk the entire time. Let us enjoy the sites on the bus. It is ok to have silence once in while.