Kurashiki

Kurashiki is a canal town in Okayama Prefecture, western Japan, that grew rich storing and shipping rice in the Edo period. Its merchant quarter survived intact, and the white-walled storehouses of the Bikan Historical Quarter now mirror themselves in a willow-lined canal that defines the town's image.

Flat-bottomed boats pole visitors along the water, and at dusk soft lighting turns the district calmer and lovelier. The Ohara Museum of Art, Japan's first museum of Western art, hangs El Greco and Monet behind a Greek facade, and the brick mill at Ivy Square now holds cafes and craft workshops.

In Kojima, south of the center and known as Japan's denim capital, jeans shops line a dedicated street with factory-direct racks. Kurashiki sits one local stop from Okayama on the San'yo line, so it fits between Hiroshima and Kansai. Stay past sunset if you can; the evening canal is the best of it.