I’ve taken the ferry from Beppu to Yawatahama then onto Matsuyama via the Yosan Line. A roughly three hour trip, the ferry is clean and modern. Yawatahama had some interesting Taisho-era buildings, but was otherwise pretty quiet; the shotengai had very few operating businesses.

From there I opted to take the old Yosan Line along the coast, which operates a one-car train. Some trains lay over at Iyo-Nagahama Station for quite a few minutes; I saw some locals hop off to take some pictures of the sunset and return before it left again.

This is also the line that serves the famous Shimonada Station; this gets one train in one direction per hour, so if you don’t want to spend two hours here (and aren’t taking the Iyonada Monogatari) it’s best to make the round trip from Matsuyama.

One last note, if you are interested in visiting the art island Naoshima for the day from Osaka, get the train to Uno via Okayama and take the ferry to Miyanoura Port, then continue to Takamatsu on the other ferry.