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Seventy-five hectares, sixteen ponds, thirteen landscaped hills and Mount Shiun standing behind it as borrowed scenery. It is larger than Kenroku-en, took four centuries to finish, and gets a fraction of the visitors. Walk the south circuit.
Borrowed scenery, 1,400 hand-pruned pines, and a grievance about rankings
Begun by the local lords in the early 1600s and worked on for over a century, Ritsurin is six ponds and thirteen landscaped hills with Mt. Shiun borrowed as the backdrop. Its pines are pruned by hand year-round. Japan's own guidebooks routinely rank it above the official Three Great Gardens, and Michelin gives it three stars.
Ritsurin is seventy-five hectares, took over a century to build, borrows an entire mountain as its backdrop, and is not on the official list of Japan’s Three Great Gardens. Kagawa has never quite got over this, and the practical result is that you can walk it in peace.
Seventy-five hectares, six ponds and thirteen landscaped hills, begun by a local lord in the early 1600s and worked on for over a century by successive Matsudaira daimyo. Mount Shiun stands directly behind it and is treated as part of the composition — borrowed scenery, on a scale few gardens attempt.
It is bigger than Kenroku-en and Koraku-en, is often argued to be the finest garden in Japan, and is not one of the official Three Great Gardens — a slight the prefecture has never fully forgiven. The practical consequence for you is that it is far less crowded.
On the slope below Mount Shiun
Eleven generations continue the garden
Six ponds, thirteen hills, 75 hectares
Now a Special Place of Scenic Beauty
Walk the south circuit and stop at Kikugetsu-tei for matcha. Almost nobody sits down, and that is the point of it.
Both pins on one map, so the distance is a fact rather than a feeling.
Counted from the moment you step off the gangway. The hour before all-aboard is not in this bar; it is already set aside.
8 minutes each way is the honest figure for tram or taxi, not the optimistic one. If your ship is late, cut the 2 hr 44 min in the middle. Never cut the hour at the end.
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare on a 6-hour stop ashore.
It is considerably larger — about seventy-five hectares against Kenroku-en’s eleven — took over a century to complete, and uses Mount Shiun behind it as borrowed scenery. It is not counted among Japan’s official Three Great Gardens, which is a long-standing local grievance and the reason it is far quieter than the three that are.
Sixty minutes for the south circuit, which holds the classic views, and ninety to do both circuits properly. Add fifteen minutes each way from the cruise berth by tram, which makes it comfortable even on a three-hour stop ashore.
Each one is a finished day we have walked and timed, with this stop in it. Read the route rather than assembling it yourself.
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
4 hr for bothA fine-grained sugar made from local sugarcane by a hand-kneading process that takes days, pressed into small moulded sweets shaped as flowers and leaves.
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4 hr 15 min for bothOne of only three Japanese castles moated with seawater, taken directly from the sea.
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4 hr 30 min for bothKagawa eats more udon per head than anywhere in Japan.
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