Kurashiki Bikan

Kurashiki — the "Venice of Japan" in Okayama prefecture — preserves its Edo-period rice merchant district around the Bikan Historical Quarter, where white-walled kura storehouses line a willow-shaded canal in an atmosphere entirely unlike any other city in Japan. The Ohara Museum of Art, Japan's first Western art museum, houses works by El Greco, Monet and Matisse.

FFGR Japan provides private transfers from Okayama Shinkansen, with circuits combining Kurashiki's canal district and the Ohara Museum with day trips to Naoshima Island's contemporary art museums.