What do underground treasure troves, ninja lairs and drunken raccoon dogs have in common? Shiga Prefecture's Koka City, that's what.

Beneath the deceptive veneer of an unassuming rural setting lies a wealth of history: an ancient capital, crafts of deception, mythical tricksters and relics of distant ages. And it's all within an hour of Kyoto.

Koka City is a combination of several rural areas molded into a single municipality, but it is its village of Shigaraki that first earned fame for the region. Tucked into a quiet valley, Shigaraki was once the capital of Japan, albeit for only four years. Emperor Shomu established his palace there in 724, but then had to abandon it following an earthquake and a forest fire. Until the first permanent capital, in Kyoto, was founded in 794, it had been the practice to move the capital with each new Emperor, to escape the taint of death of the previous ruler, but in this case the capital was destroyed first, eventually coming to be known as "The Palace of Illusion" because it vanished so rapidly.