Okayama City Trips & Tours

Japan has its showstoppers, and then it has Okayama – a city that holds its aces without ever needing to brag. Korakuen Garden, one of the country's three great landscape gardens, looks across the Asahi River toward the brooding Okayama Castle, nicknamed the Crow Castle for its ink-dark walls. Both are at their finest in autumn when the maples blaze and the garden stays open after dark for illuminated evening strolls. Beyond the city centre, the Edo-era canals of Kurashiki's Bikan Historical Quarter warrant an afternoon of laidback wandering, while a cycle through the Kibiji Plain will take you past ancient burial mounds and the long covered corridor of Kibitsu Shrine. And then there’s Okayama's (mouth-watering) food. Barazushi, a riot of Seto Inland Sea harvest piled onto vinegared rice, was essentially an act of culinary defiance against a feudal lord's austerity decree. Pair it with a muscat-flavoured craft pour from Doppo Brewery and you'll understand why this sunny corner of Japan is such a delight.