Kagawa Museum: Takamatsu Travel Guide (4.1★)

Between the castle walls and the ferry port

Takamatsu packs a lot into a short walk. Within a few minutes of JR Takamatsu Station you have the ferry terminals for the Seto Inland Sea, the stone walls of Takamatsu Castle and, in Tamamochō beside them, Kagawa Museum. The museum puts the story of the old province of Sanuki indoors, right next to the ground where a good part of that story happened.

It doesn’t get the attention of the art islands across the water, and that suits a certain kind of traveller. If you’re catching a boat to Naoshima or waiting out a rainy afternoon, it’s one of the most useful hours you can spend near the port.

What the galleries cover

This is a regional museum first. Its displays, exhibitions and events cover the history and culture of Kagawa, with art shown alongside them, so you aren’t walking through one fixed collection. Expect a mix of permanent displays on the region and temporary exhibitions that change through the year.

The hands-on activities are what set it apart from a glass-case museum. They suit families, and they help anyone without Japanese get more out of a visit. Before you go, check the official site to see:

• which special exhibition is on during your dates
• whether that exhibition needs its own ticket
• whether any workshops or hands-on sessions are scheduled for your day

Give yourself about 1.5 to 2 hours if you want to read properly. An hour is enough for a quick loop before a ferry.

The moat full of sea bream next door

Kagawa Museum’s best neighbour is the reason to plan the two visits as one. Takamatsu Castle, now Tamamo Park, is one of Japan’s few “sea castles”. Its moats are filled with seawater from the Inland Sea, and sea bream (tai) swim in them.

Visitors feed the fish from the bridges and the stone edges, and the water rises and falls with the tide. Walking from the museum’s history displays straight to the moat that once guarded the lords of Takamatsu makes both make more sense. A good order is the museum first while you’re fresh, then the park in the softer late-afternoon light. Check the park’s own gate hours separately.

Getting to Tamamochō

You can get here easily on foot or by train.

• JR Takamatsu Station: roughly a 10-minute walk east through the Sunport area. This is the terminus for trains from Okayama on the Marine Liner across the Seto Ōhashi bridge.
• Kotoden Takamatsu-Chikkō Station: the end of the Kotohira line, right beside Tamamo Park. It’s the easiest stop if you’re coming from Kotohira or Ritsurin.
• Takamatsu Port: if you’re coming back from Naoshima, Teshima or Shōdoshima, it’s a short walk from the ferry piers.

There’s no reason to drive in. The station, port, castle and museum all sit in one walkable cluster on the waterfront.

Picking your day around the crowds

The schedule is simple: 9am–5pm, Tuesday to Sunday. Mondays are closed. That catches out plenty of visitors who plan a “museum day” at the start of the week, so if you only have a Monday in Takamatsu, put the castle park and the port at the top of your list.

Weekends are the time to avoid. Saturday and Sunday are busy across the full 9am–5pm opening, so there’s no quiet window to slip into. The galleries are far easier to read on a Tuesday to Friday visit, especially when a popular special exhibition is on.

Last entry is usually before the 5pm close. Aim to be inside by mid-afternoon rather than arriving at 4:30.

Moving through the galleries quietly

Japanese museums have their own etiquette, and this one follows it.

• Tickets: buy at the entrance counter. The current admission is posted there and on the official site. If you’re paying by card or IC card, ask at the counter, or carry some yen just in case.
• Bags: large backpacks and luggage usually go in coin lockers or at the cloakroom. This helps if you’ve just stepped off a ferry with a suitcase.
• Photography: the rules change from exhibition to exhibition. Look for the camera-with-a-line-through-it signs at gallery entrances, and expect special exhibitions to be stricter than the permanent displays.
• Voices and phones: people talk quietly here. Calls happen outside or in the lobby.
• Pens: galleries showing fragile works often allow pencils only for notes, so don’t sketch with ink.

If you don’t read Japanese, ask at the front desk for any English pamphlet or guide that’s available. A quick “sumimasen, eigo no panfuretto wa arimasu ka?” gets the point across.

Making a half-day of it

The museum sits at the centre of an easy waterfront loop. After the galleries and the castle moats, walk north to Sunport Takamatsu, where the red lighthouse at the end of the breakwater is a favourite sunset stroll.

Just east of the port is Kitahama Alley, a row of old warehouses that now hold cafés and small shops. South of the castle, the long covered shopping arcades around Marugamemachi keep you dry on a wet day. They also lead to plenty of places serving Sanuki udon, the thick wheat noodles Kagawa is famous across Japan for.

If you have more time, Ritsurin Garden is a short Kotoden or JR ride away. With the museum, it makes a classic Takamatsu day: a feudal lord’s garden, his castle’s sea moats, and the story of the province he ruled, all before the evening ferry.