Top choice in Western Honshū
Kōraku has classy touches such as local museum pieces displayed on each floor, and pampering extras such as complimentary aroma pots for your room. Beds are comfortable, and the corner rooms (twin from ¥14,000), with large curved windows, are especially spacious. Staff speak English, as does the enthusiastic manager, who you may find mingling with guests in the lobby.
There are good discounts for longer stays, and a buffet breakfast or lunch for ¥1080.
0.74 MILES
Kōraku-en draws the crowds with its reputation as one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan. It has expansive lawns broken up by ponds, teahouses…
24.12 MILES
One of the most beautiful gardens in the country, Ritsurin-kōen dates from the mid-1600s and took more than a century to complete. Designed as a walking…
14.7 MILES
In Honmura, half a dozen traditional buildings have been turned over to contemporary artists to use as the setting for creative installations, often…
15.42 MILES
Teshima's art 'museum' impresses for its architecture – a monumental concrete shell, forming a low teardrop-shaped dome on the hillside, designed by Tokyo…
24.52 MILES
About 500m north of Yashima station, Shikoku-mura is an excellent village museum that houses old buildings transported here from all over Shikoku and…
27.03 MILES
This small castle dates from 1597. It took five years to build and is one of only 12 castles in Japan to have its original wooden donjon intact. It's…
9.89 MILES
This is Kurashiki's premier museum, housing the predominantly Western art collection amassed by local textile magnate Ōhara Magosaburō (1880–1943), with…
14.47 MILES
This kiln and gallery-shop is run by the Kimura family, one of the six original families granted official permission in the early 1600s to produce pottery…
0.6 MILES
This is a small museum with exhibits of scrolls, armour and paintings that were once the property of the Ikeda clan (who ruled Okayama for much of the Edo…
0.65 MILES
Tools, armoury and Bizen pottery are among the historic artefacts exhibited at this museum, located near the entrance to Kōraku-en.
0.69 MILES
Nicknamed U-jō (烏城; Crow Castle) because of its colour, the striking black Okayama Castle has an imposing exterior with gilded-fish gargoyles flipping…
0.74 MILES
Kōraku-en draws the crowds with its reputation as one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan. It has expansive lawns broken up by ponds, teahouses…
0.78 MILES
Prominent Taishō-era artist and poet Takehisa Yumeji (1884–1934) is particularly known for his bijin-ga (images of beautiful women), and various wistfully…
4.13 MILES
This sprawling Shintō shrine is dedicated to an ancient warrior who subdued a local demon-bandit called Ura and brought the area under central control…
6.79 MILES
The 5th-century Tsukuriyama-kofun is the fourth-biggest kofun tomb (keyhole-shaped burial mound) in Japan. It's thought to mark the final resting place of…
8.03 MILES
A highlight on the Kibiji bicycle route, this temple has a picturesque five-storey, 34m pagoda – famed for being the last pagoda to be built in Japan. The…