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At the foot of Mount Shuin lies Ritsurin-koen (daily; opening hours vary monthly but at least 7am-5pm; Y400), at 750,000 square metres, the largest garden in Japan. Three feudal lords had a hand in constructing these splendid gardens over a period of one hundred years, starting in the early seventeenth century. In the following century Ritsurin became the private gardens of the powerful Matsudaira family and was opened to the public in 1875. The gardens were designed to present magnificent vistas throughout the seasons, from an arched red bridge amid a snowy landscape in winter, to ponds full of purple and white irises in early summer. You're most likely to enter the park from the East Gate, a twenty-minute walk from the port. Alternatively, you can take the bus from platform 2 outside the JR station. JR trains stop at least once an hour at Ritsurin-koen Kita-guchi, one minute's walk from the North Gate - a quieter entrance to the park. At the East Gate there's an information booth where you can pick up a free English map of the gardens and buy tickets, at a modest discount, combining entrance with tea in the Kikugetsu-tei Pavilion . Ignore the shabby zoo to the left of the East Gate, and head instead for the Sanuki Folkcraft Museum (daily 8.45am-4.30pm, Wed until 4pm; free), worth checking out for its good examples of local basketwork, ceramics and furniture and especially its huge, brightly painted banners and kites. By contrast, the rather pompously named Centre for the Encouragement of Commerce and Industry - housed in an impressive two-storey traditional building - is little more than a glorified giftshop. From the East Gate you can either follow a route through the Nantei (South Garden) to the left or Hokutei (North Garden) to the right, though your priority will probably be to head in the opposite direction to the many tour groups that descend daily on the park. The more stylized Nantei garden has paths around three lakes, dotted with islands sprouting carefully pruned pine trees. The highlight here is the delightful Kikugetsu-tei , or "Scooping the Moon" teahouse , overlooking the South Lake. Dating from around 1640 and named after a Tang-dynasty Chinese poem, the teahouse exudes tranquillity, with its empty tatami rooms with screens pulled back to reveal perfect garden views. The Nantei also has the less elaborate, more secluded Higurashi-tei teahouse set in a shady forest. Hokutei has a more natural appearance, and is based around two ponds - Fuyosho-ike, dotted with lotus flowers, and Gunochi-ike, where feudal lords once hunted ducks and which now blooms with irises in June. Keep an eye out for the Tsuru Kame no Matsu, just to the left of the main park building, a black pine tree shaped like a crane spreading its wings and considered to be the most beautiful of the 29,190 trees in the gardens. Behind this is a line of pines called the "Byobu-matsu", after the folding-screen painting ( byobu ) they are supposed to resemble.
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