After staying the night in Toi (see the last post), we decided to try the beaches further south along the west coast of Izu.
I had stayed in Matsuzaki earlier this year and gone hiking, so I saw its beach then. Car parks are close by (which are free), the beach is sandy and near the town, so, again, its convenient for a restaurant at lunch time.
We arrived at the beach at about 9.30 am, and it was not so crowded and the waves looked nice, so we planted our tent and started swimming.
Later it started getting crowded, so at lunch time, we packed up and decided to go even further south in Izu. Mainly to find a beach with waves, as the waves on the west side of Izu seemed very weak. It was a lovely flat sea, but we wanted some decent waves for our recently started hobby of body boarding and the clouds were starting to roll in across the beach.
Overall, this is a very good beach. Most beaches in Izu cost 1,500 yen to use the car park, but here, the car park is free andright next to the beach. There are two large hotels nearby and plenty of ryokans and you can get the bus from Shuzenji Onsen if you come from Tokyo by train.
The beach is a lovely sandy yellow and goes out into the pacific in a shallow gradient, so its good for kids. There were floating islands to get on here also, plenty of lifeguards, and its convenient to the town. The only downside is that the water was a little murky when we were there.
Overall though, I highly recommend this beach and Matsuzaki town in general.