1 / 7NaoshimaPhoto: Yamashita Yohei / CC BY 2.0
Tap a photo to see it large. 7 photographs, every one credited.
Checked against official sources · updated · Takumi Yamada
A copper-smelting island turned over to contemporary art from the 1990s: Tadao Ando concrete sunk into the hillside so nothing breaks the skyline, a Kusama pumpkin on the jetty, and old houses converted one at a time in Honmura. Chichu is a timed ticket, so book ahead online before you sail; there are no door sales once the online slots are gone.
- Our number 3 for Takamatsu, out of ten. It is the first thing we would spend the hours on.
- On a 4–6h ashore call our verdict is "Too tight" — take megijima or ogijima instead — 20 to 40 minutes out.
- It is not only a photo stop: depopulated, industrially damaged, and then rebuilt around museums.
- Chichu 10:00–17:00 (last entry 16:00) — most close mondays.
- This needs 7 hr, so it only fits a 9-hour call or longer. On a shorter one it will cost you the ship, not the view.
Why Naoshima is famous
Depopulated, industrially damaged, and then rebuilt around museums
An industrial island that was failing until Benesse began commissioning art here in the late 1980s, including Tadao Ando buildings (the tenth, the Naoshima New Museum of Art near Honmura, opened in spring 2025) and James Turrell and Walter De Maria installations placed underground. The Chichu museum is lit only by daylight. It is the reason the Setouchi Triennale exists.
Naoshima refined copper and poisoned its own hillsides. Teshima was used as an illegal industrial waste dump for over a decade. Both islands were emptying. Then someone decided to put world-class contemporary art on them, and it worked — which is a much stranger story than the pumpkin on the jetty suggests.
Naoshima refined copper for most of the twentieth century and was left with a damaged landscape and a shrinking population. From the late 1980s an education company began buying land and commissioning buildings, and the island was gradually rebuilt around contemporary art.
Tadao Ando’s museums are sunk into the hillsides so that almost nothing breaks the skyline — Chichu is essentially underground, lit by daylight shafts. In Honmura village, old houses have been converted one at a time, including a former dentist’s surgery with a Statue of Liberty inside it.
Islands damaged and emptying
And commissions Tadao Ando
Underground, lit by daylight shafts
A shell with no exhibits, and eight venues
On a short call take Megijima or Ogijima instead. Twenty to forty minutes out, real art, and nobody there.
Things worth knowing
- Chichu Art Museum requires a timed ticket booked online in advance. Do it before you leave home.
- Most museums close on Mondays. Check your call date against that before planning anything.
- Use the town bus from Miyanoura (¥100, one to three an hour) and the free museum shuttle from Tsutsujiso. Bicycles can be hired at the port, but some roads have hills.
- The yellow Kusama pumpkin is on the Benesse side jetty; the red one is at Miyanoura, by the ferry.
- Setouchi瀬戸内 — The Inland Sea. Calm water, and about three thousand islands.
- Chichu地中美術館 — "In the earth." A museum built so it does not break the skyline.
Naoshima and your ship
Both pins on one map, so the distance is a fact rather than a feeling.
Where the 7 hr goes
Counted from the moment you step off the gangway, about 30 minutes after the ship arrives. The hour before all-aboard is not in this bar; it is already set aside.
55 minutes each way is the measured figure for ferry ~50–60 min, not the optimistic one. If your ship is late, cut the 5 hr 10 min in the middle. Never cut the hour at the end.
Questions people send us
Can I do Naoshima on a cruise call?
Only just on an eight-hour call: on a 09:00–17:00 call the only workable ferries are the 10:10 out and 14:20 back, with no later boat. A 12-hour call is the comfortable one. The ferry is fifty to sixty minutes each way from the Shikoku Kisen counter, about 10 minutes on foot from the cruise quay, and the museums need three to four hours. On a shorter call, Megijima or Ogijima are twenty to forty minutes out, also carry Setouchi Triennale art, and are nearly empty.
Do I need to book Naoshima museums in advance?
Chichu Art Museum requires a timed ticket booked online ahead of arrival, so do it before you leave home. Most of the island’s museums also close on Mondays — check that against your call date before building a plan around them.
Routes that already include it
Each one is a finished day timed from the official timetables, with this stop in it. Read the route rather than assembling it yourself.
What to put beside it
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
See · ~3hRitsurin Garden
Seventy-five hectares, six ponds, thirteen landscaped hills and Mount Shiun standing behind it as borrowed scenery.
See the detail
Eat · ~1.5hUdon at a self-service mill
Kagawa eats more udon per head than anywhere in Japan.
See the detail
See · ~1.25hTakamatsu Castle
One of only three Japanese castles moated with seawater, taken directly from the sea.
See the detail