There is a clock tower at the centre of the town. Izushi keeps the street plan of a castle town, and around the Shinkorō — the tower that announced the hours — stand gable-fronted merchant houses and storehouses. The Shinkorō originally marked the hours with a drum; a clock was installed in it later, and it has served as the landmark of the town ever since — it is the thing people navigate by, and directions given here tend to begin from it rather than from the station.

Izushi was designated an Important Preservation District in December 2007, and the streets are lined with restaurants serving sara-soba: buckwheat noodles brought out on small individual plates, five to a serving, stacked up as you work through them. A portion is counted in plates rather than in bowls, so the record of how much you have eaten accumulates on the table in front of you. Toyooka's town centre is about twenty minutes away by car, Tajima airport is close enough to be useful, and snow settles here on a good many winter days, which keeps the visitor numbers seasonal.

A clock at the middle of a castle town is a more recent arrangement than it looks. Announcing the hours was originally the castle's function, performed for the domain; when the domain was abolished, the town took the job over, and the tower along with it. So the reason a timepiece stands at the centre of Izushi has nothing to do with the castle having put one there. It is that the castle stopped existing, the hours still needed announcing, and the town found itself holding a responsibility it had never previously had to think about.