Experience the best of Okayama

Okayama Castle, painted black and sometimes called the Crow Castle, stands beside the Asahi River, and across the water is Korakuen, a garden laid out around 1700 and ranked among Japan's three great landscape gardens, with lawns, ponds, tea houses and cranes. The two can be reached on foot across a footbridge.

Kurashiki, a canal town of white-walled warehouses and a fine art museum, is a short train ride west, and Bizen, home of unglazed Bizen pottery, lies to the east. The art island of Naoshima, with its museums and sculptures, is reached by boat from the port of Uno, and the Seto Ohashi bridges, which cross the Inland Sea to Shikoku, begin near Kurashiki.

Okayama calls itself the Land of Sunshine for its dry weather, and its white peaches and muscat grapes are prized across Japan in summer and autumn. Barazushi, vinegared rice topped with seafood, vegetables and egg, is the local dish, with kibi dango, soft millet dumplings tied to the Momotaro tale.