Ritsurin Koen
It was a lovely sunny warm day as forecasted and due to having so much packed into this day we were up early, out and on the go! The walk to the garden was relatively straight forward taking about 25 minutes, with the walk down the main high street being quite pleasant. We stopped off at a Seven Eleven on the way for a coffee and grabbed some lunch for later. Alternatively, the garden can be reached by taking the local train from Takamatsu station to Ritsurin Koen-Kitaguchi station taking 5 minutes, it is then only a 5 minute walk to the garden.
The entrance to the Ritsurin Koen garden was easy to find and to enter only costing 410 yen each (about £2.50!), which was extremely reasonable! The garden is massive and spilt into two, a North and a South Garden. Ritsurin is a strolling-style garden built in the Edo period and consist of 6 ponds and 13 landscaped hills which have been strategically placed in front of the green vista of Mt. Shiun. Together with the fantastic rock arrangements, bridges, various plants and trees makes the garden absolutely fantastic. The name Risturin means chestnut grove, but the garden is most famous for its many pine trees, this being one of the main reasons why we wanted to visit the garden. There are 1,400 pine trees in the garden, with a 1000 of them being precisely maintained by the gardeners. Some of the pine trees are over 300 years old!
Following the map, it took us along a path around the stunning 7000 m2
Hokko Pond with two islands in the middle called Zensho (front island) and
Kousho (back island). From there we went over a small bridge following the path around the garden.
From the South Garden we then ventured in the North Garden which was
equally as good…though between the two, for us the South Garden was the best,
it was fantastic…the many Japanese black, red and white pines were absolutely
stunning, certainly the best display of Niwaki (garden trees) we had seen!
Combined with the fantastic landscapes, ponds, rocks and bridges it was
stunning. We spent the whole morning exploring both the South and North
gardens, overall, out of all the gardens we have visited in Japan, this one was
the best! I think we’ll let our pictures do the rest of the talking!
A bit of history…it is believed that Risturin Garden was originally
started in the southwest corner of the current garden in the late 16th
century by the Sato clan. Then when Takatoshi Ikoma was ruling the province in
around 1625, the current area of the main pond Nanko was formed. Yorishige
Matsudaira began ruling the Takamatsu domain in around 1642, and so inherited
the garden. He and future family generations kept developing the garden over
some 100 years, before it was finally completed in 1745! The garden was used as
a villa for 228 years, and eventually became a public garden in 1875. The
garden was designated in 1953 as one of Japan’s Special Places of Scenic Beauty
by the Government.
At the admissions building we received a leaflet that contained a map of
the garden, with direction for the best way to view it. So, following the map
we decided to start in the South Garden walking in an anti-clockwise direction
around the garden. Some of the first set of pine trees we came across were
‘Royal Planted Trees’ Four of which had been planted by the Japanese royal
family in 1914 and 1923…but also the central tree being planted by our own
Edward VIII in the 1922, when he was the crown prince…which we found quite
surprising when reading the plague next to the tree!
It was certainly an absolute joy, even finding a nice spot for lunch to take it all in. There were loads of fantastic view spots in the garden, with one of best being an elevated view of the 7,900 m2 Nanko pond with the garden in the backdrop.
