Ritsurin Garden

Ritsurin was developed by the Matsudaira lords of Takamatsu over about a century from the 1620s and covers roughly seventy-five hectares, which makes it the largest garden designated a Special Place of Scenic Beauty in Japan - considerably larger than any of the three great gardens, a fact Kagawa points out regularly. The design is six ponds and thirteen artificial hills laid out against Mount Shiun, which is used as borrowed scenery and gives the garden its enclosing wall on one side. The pines are the labour: about a thousand of them are shaped, and roughly half are hand-pruned individually each year by garden staff, which is why they hold their form. Kikugetsutei, a tea house from the seventeenth century, sits on the south pond and serves matcha looking out over the water. A boat can be taken on the south pond.

What you actually see

• Six ponds, thirteen hills - a seventy-five hectare layout built over a century.
• Mount Shiun borrowed - the mountain used as the garden's backdrop and edge.
• A thousand pines - about half hand-pruned individually every year.
• Kikugetsutei - a seventeenth-century tea house serving matcha over the water.

When to go

April for cherry, late November for colour. Two to three hours.

Honest expectations

It is large and covering it properly takes longer than people expect. Entry is charged, and the tea house and boat are extra. Summer in Takamatsu is hot and humid with little shade on the open paths. The north garden is plainer than the south.

Nearby

Takamatsu port and the Setouchi island ferries are north.