Gardens at the Adachi Museum

Today’s post brings us to the main reason that we traveled to Matsue. Over a year ago we saw a particularly striking photo of a garden on one of our Japanese calendars. Tracie eventually figured out that the photo was taken at the Adachi Museum of Art near Yasugi, Japan. Yasugi itself is fairly small and out of the way, so it is usually recommended that one travel first to nearby Matsue to visit the Adachi Museum. This all sounded a little complicated at first, but upon further investigation it appeared that Matsue itself was worth visiting anyway and we decided that we’d add it to the itinerary.

We took a train from Matsue to Yasugi, arriving at what must be the smallest train station we’ve passed through. The station master clearly knows that any foreigners must be there to visit the Adachi: he automatically hands you the schedule for the bus that shuttles between the museum and the station. The timing wasn’t ideal so we took a taxi instead.

The gardens hold the title of being Japan’s #1 gardens as nominated by The Journal of Japanese Gardening. It’s easy to why; they are indeed stunning. Personally I think that they have something of an unfair advantage because nobody walks through them. You view them from inside the museum, through a series of huge, immaculate plate-glass windows. There are also a few terraces that provide wider views. It sounds a little stifling but it’s actually done very well and I never felt particularly constrained by the arrangement. It’s actually preferable to the compromises I’ve seen made at other gardens, where somewhat unsightly new fences have had to be erected to keep the idiot tourists from walking across the moss and so forth. Another advantage is that the footing is almost entirely level and even so it’s more accessible than most other gardens.

We had a delightful time there. The gardens were entirely worth the journey. I’ve posted a set of photos of them here.