Kenroku-en Garden

Kenroku-en Garden, located in Kanazawa, is officially one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan and well worth a visit if you’re in the area. Many consider Kenroku-en to be the best of the three official top gardens in Japan.

Founded in the Edo period (1603 – 1868), it’s visited by thousands of visitors throughout the year. It’s a favorite attraction of visitors and tourists alike and many come more than once, because the Kenroku-en garden reveals a different experience each season.

This isn’t like a typical garden. Kenroku-en is a strolling garden that’s full of gardening techniques that span its history. It’s filled with large ponds, hills, cottages and even tea houses. You’re free to roam around and soak up all of its beauty.

To show you that the Kenroku-en isn’t a small little garden, here’s a layout graphic.

Kenroku-en Garden - Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan - JapanDestination.com

As you can see, it’s spacious and it has many key points to see. Make sure you bring your camera. There are three courses you can take. Typically, you should plan to spend about 90 minutes for a course, but you might find yourself taking longer as the beauty of Kenroku-en awes you.

Kenroku-en Garden Admission

Adults are 300 ($3) Yen and children 100 ($1) Yen. If you happen to be in a group over 30, make sure to get the group discount of 20%.

You can also partake in some tea at the Shigure-tei tea house. Natural leaf tea is 300 ($3) Yen and green powdered tea is 700 ($7) Yen.

Kenroku-en is open 7 a.m. to 6 p.m March through October. In the other months, it’s open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. It’s closed December 29 – January 03.

You can hire a guide and that will cost about 1,500 Yen ($15) per 30 minutes.