PORT OF JAPAN
Ritsurin Garden with pines and a pond in Takamatsu
Timed plans · 高松

Takamatsu, minute by minutethree plans that get you back on board

Every step is timed from the moment you step off. Every plan ends at the gangway with margin to spare.

Photo: Sei F / CC BY-SA 2.0
← Takamatsu port guide

The clocks assume normal queues and include all transit. Your only job: know your all-aboard time.

PORT OF JAPAN — Port Day Sheet
Takamatsu 高松

Timed shore plans, measured from your gangway · port-of-japan.com/takamatsu/ · Verified August 16, 2026

MY SHIP DAY — fill this in before you walk off
Ship
Date
Docked at (berth)
All-aboard (SHIP time)
My deadline = all-aboard − 60 min
Last shuttle back

Phones auto-switch to local time; all-aboard runs on ship time. Write both if they differ.

2–3h ashore

Castle, garden, udon

2–3 hours ashore — and no tour needed · ~3h door to door

  1. +0:00
    Walk to Takamatsu Castle

    Five minutes from the berth. The moat is seawater and the fish in it are sea bream

    Full guide: Takamatsu Castle →
  2. +0:35
    Tram or taxi to Ritsurin Garden

    ~15 minutes

    Full guide: Ritsurin →
  3. +1:00
    Ritsurin — the south garden circuit

    Four hundred years old, and a mountain borrowed as its backdrop. The south loop is the good one

    Full guide: Ritsurin →
  4. +2:00
    Udon at a self-service mill

    Carry your own bowl, add your own broth, pay by the plate

  5. +2:40
    Back to the ship

Transport spend: ~¥600 pp. Garden ¥410. Udon ~¥400.

If you're running late: Nothing here needs a booking or a shuttle. If you run late, the castle is five minutes from the gangway and always open to walk past.

4–6h ashore

Ritsurin properly, and an island

4–6 hours ashore · ~5.5h door to door

  1. +0:00
    Ferry to Megijima

    ~20 minutes from the pier your ship is on

  2. +0:40
    Megijima — the cave and the art works

    A near art island with almost nobody on it

  3. +2:00
    Ferry back
  4. +2:45
    Ritsurin Garden, both loops

    Ninety minutes does it justice; sixty does not

    Full guide: Ritsurin →
  5. +4:30
    Udon, then the castle

Transport spend: ~¥1,800 pp. Garden ¥410.

If you're running late: Ferries to the near islands are frequent and the crossing is short. This is a much lower-risk island plan than Naoshima.

8h+ ashore

Naoshima, or the shrine of seafarers

8h+ ashore — pick one, not both · ~8h door to door

  1. +0:00
    First ferry to Naoshima

    From the same pier. ~50–60 minutes. Buy the return now

    Full guide: Naoshima →
  2. +1:10
    Chichu Art Museum

    Sunk into the hillside by Tadao Ando. Book the timed entry before you sail

  3. +3:00
    Benesse House and the shore works

    The yellow pumpkin is on the jetty and is the photograph

  4. +4:30
    Honmura and the Art House Project

    Old houses converted one at a time. The dentist’s is the strange one

  5. +6:00
    Ferry back

    Take the second-to-last, never the last

Transport spend: ~¥2,600 pp ferry return, or ~¥2,000 rail. Museums ~¥2,100.

If you're running late: Alternative full day: Kotohira-gu, an hour by train, and 785 steps to the shrine sailors have climbed on behalf of their ships for centuries. Choose one at breakfast, not at the pier.

Rainy day — any hours

The rainy-day Takamatsu

Wet weather · ~3.5h door to door

  1. +0:00
    Walk to the Hyogomachi and Marugamemachi arcades

    Covered, and among the longest arcade networks in Shikoku

  2. +0:30
    Udon indoors, and coffee

    Kagawa eats udon in any weather and so should you

  3. +1:30
    Ritsurin’s Sanuki Folkcraft Museum

    Inside the garden, and dry. The garden in rain is also quietly lovely

    Full guide: Ritsurin →
  4. +2:45
    Arcade shopping — wasanbon and olive oil
  5. +3:20
    Back to the ship

Transport spend: ~¥600 pp. Museum ~¥410.

If you're running late: The island ferries run in rain but the art is largely outdoors. Skip Naoshima in weather and do not regret it.

GETTING AROUND — the facts that don't change by day (today's times: ship's program or Google Maps)

Ritsurin Garden: ① Walk ~5–10 min to Kotoden Takamatsu-Chikko station, by the castle moat ② Kotoden Kotohira line to Ritsurin-Koen station — then a 7 min walk Fare ¥200. every 15 min (:00/:15/:30/:45).

SHOW THIS TO A TAXI DRIVER — 運転手さんへ
Please take me back to the cruise ship (Takamatsu port)クルーズ船乗り場までお願いします
Ritsurin Garden栗林公園
Naoshima直島
Kotohira-gu, and 785 steps金刀比羅宮
Yashima and Shikoku Mura屋島

Point at a line. Taxis are metered and honest; tipping is not expected in Japan.

THE TWO-MINUTE PORT TALK — read aloud at breakfast

Sanuki udon. Kagawa is the smallest prefecture in Japan and eats the most udon. That is not a quirk of taste — it is what happens when a region has too little rain for rice, plenty of wheat and salt, and a sea full of the small dried fish that make the broth.

What art did to the islands. 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.

The god of seafarers. Kotohira-gu is the head shrine of Konpira, the deity sailors pray to. Seven hundred and eighty-five stone steps to the main hall, 1,368 to the inner shrine. For those who could not make the climb there was a substitute: you sent your dog.

A century of gardening. 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.

The one rule: be back on board 60 minutes before all-aboard — every plan above already banks it. · Free guide: port-of-japan.com/takamatsu/ · By Takumi Yamada, Shizuoka, Japan
The one rule: every plan already banks 60 minutes before all-aboard. Spend that margin on nothing.One more tripwire: phones auto-switch to local time, but all-aboard runs on ship time. Check the daily program's clock, not your lock screen.Pick what to see and eat on the Takamatsu guide or theTop 10.