"Land of volcanoes around Moun ..." a Aso-san Travel Page by Pavlik_NL

The region around mount Aso is the largest caldera-crater in our world. Being inside you can barely believe that all this is actually a crater from what once was a huge volcano. The eruption, or better still total explosion, left a gab in the earth as big as half the island of Kyushu. Only when you carefully look around you can see around you in the distance the crater-walls rising up on all sides. Clouds get stuck in the crater and drift helplessly against the sides. In the centre, some new volcanoes were born and not often show there firy glow in the night. Straight through the crater is a railroad connecting some villages in this agricultural, not so touristic area of Japan. Kumamoto could be used as the gateway, Beppu for leaving. Stay in both places and an extra night inside the volcano. Enjoy the people and ... here you can finally eat some meat again (after weeks of mainly rice and fish). Proudly one will present to you Kumamoto-cow and it tastes perfect when made in a gourmet-kind way.