With its scenic canals lined with weeping willows, Edo-period gardens and historic merchant houses, the Kurashiki Bikan Historical Quarter (Kurashiki Bikan Chiku) offers an authentic feel of Old Japan at the heart of one of Japan's oldest merchant towns.
The historical quarter has been painstakingly preserved, with the 19th- and 20th-century buildings characterized by their mushikamado latticed windows, whitewashed walls and black tiled roofs, and the waterfront promenades linked by pretty stone footbridges. Highlights of the atmospheric district include the grand Ohashi House; an array of museums including an Archaeological Museum, a Toy Museum, a Museum of Folkcraft and the Ohara Museum of Art, Japan’s first museum of Western art; and the aptly-named Ivy Square, a former textile mill now crawling with ivy and home to a cluster of cafés, traditional tea houses and crafts shops.
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