Ryoanji

The rock garden is about twenty-five metres by ten, walled on three sides, with fifteen stones in five groups set in gravel raked daily, and nothing else - no water, no planting inside the wall. It is the most discussed garden in Japan and almost nothing about it is settled: the date is given variously from the late fifteenth to the seventeenth century, the designer is unknown, and the meaning has been read as islands in a sea, tiger cubs crossing a river, and as deliberately meaningless. One observation holds up: from any single point on the viewing veranda, only fourteen of the fifteen stones are visible, and the arrangement seems designed to make the whole ungraspable at once. The wall is worth attention too - it is clay boiled in oil, and the seepage has stained it in patterns. A pond garden below the temple is older than the rock garden and usually empty.

What you actually see

• Fifteen stones - five groups in daily-raked gravel, walled on three sides.
• Always fourteen visible - one stone hidden from any single point on the veranda.
• An oil-boiled wall - clay whose seepage has stained it over centuries.
• The lower pond garden - older than the rock garden and far quieter.

When to go

Early morning, right at opening, all year. An hour or two.

Honest expectations

The veranda is crowded from mid-morning and the quiet the garden is famous for disappears. It is small and there is no explanation on site, by design. Entry is charged and the temple closes early in winter. Photographs make it look emptier than it is.

Nearby

Kinkakuji is east; Ninnaji is west along the same road.