Takamatsu

A stroll garden the lords of Takamatsu shaped over more than a century, with six ponds and thirteen artificial hills below Mount Shiun. A boatman poles a small boat around the south pond, and with few seats it needs booking in advance.

The site of Takamatsu Castle, ringed by a moat filled with seawater. Sea bream swim in it and crowd in when you throw the feed sold at the gate, and it sits right beside Takamatsu-Chikko station, an easy stop while you wait for a train.

Tadao Ando buried most of this museum underground and shows Monet's water lilies in natural light only. Entry needs booking online for a set time, Mondays are its day off, and the ferry from Takamatsu port to Naoshima takes about 50 minutes.

A single droplet-shaped concrete shell with no columns is the entire museum, and water beads well up from the floor and roll about on their own. You take your shoes off, photos are forbidden inside, and entry runs on booking by time slot.

An island 20 minutes by ferry from Takamatsu port, said to be where Momotaro defeated the ogres. A large man-made cave on the hillside is called the Ogre's Cave, and a bus timed to the ferries runs between the harbour and the cave.

A flat-topped lava plateau; the Battle of Yashima in the Genpei War of 1185 was fought in the waters below. Yashima-ji, temple 84 of the Shikoku pilgrimage, stands on top, and at the cliff edge you throw clay discs toward the sea to cast off bad luck.

Konpira, the shrine of the sea god, is 785 stone steps to the main hall and 1,368 to the inner shrine. It is about 1 hour by train from Takamatsu, and shops where the approach begins lend walking sticks that you hand back on the way down.

An open-air museum of farmhouses, storehouses and sugar-pressing huts moved from across Shikoku to the foot of Yashima. Near the entrance a kazurabashi vine bridge shows the stream through the gaps underfoot, and walking the whole hillside takes over 1 hour.

A row of old harbourside warehouses refitted with cafes, shops and restaurants. The sea is right behind them, so window tables watch the island ferries go by, and each shop keeps its own day off, so a few are shut on any weekday.

A sandbar path that rises from the sea only at low tide, linking four islands, uncovered twice a day. The ferry from Takamatsu to Shodoshima takes about 1 hour, so plan the sailing around the tide table, and turn back as soon as the water starts rising.

On Naoshima's south shore Benesse House combines a museum and hotel in one building, and Yayoi Kusama's yellow pumpkin perches where its pier ends. A 2021 typhoon swept the pumpkin away; it returned a year later. Shuttle buses circle the island.

A gorge of jagged cliffs in central Shodoshima, crossed by a ropeway that glides about five minutes over the valley. November colours draw the crowds, and at the top people toss clay saucers into the ravine for luck. Island buses are few; plan around them.

Temple 75 on the Shikoku pilgrimage, said to stand on Kukai's birthplace, with a 45m five-storey pagoda over the grounds. Under the hall dedicated to him, a pitch-black corridor is walked by feeling along the wall. Trains from Takamatsu take under an hour.

A sandy beach in Mitoyo to the west. On calm evenings when the sea has drawn back, pools left on the flats mirror the sky, and a figure standing before one seems to float in the clouds. Crowds come at sunset, about sixty minutes by car from Takamatsu.

A hillside park of olive groves running down to the sea, its white Greek-style windmill the classic view. The live-action Kiki's Delivery Service was filmed here, so the visitor hall lends broomsticks free and people jump-shoot on them by the windmill.

The central stretch of downtown Takamatsu's covered arcades, which together run about 2.7km. A tall glass dome roofs the plaza at its crossroads, and on wet days you can walk between department stores and udon counters without an umbrella.