Naoshima, Kagawa

The ferry from Uno Port takes barely any time at all — and then Naoshima appears, low and green across the water. At Miyaura, the island's main landing, the smell of salt air mixes with something industrial, a faint trace of the copper smelting that has run through this island's economy since the Taisho era. The Mitsubishi Materials refinery still operates here, and the hillsides it once stripped bare were later replanted, giving the island its present cover of dense coastal green.

The art infrastructure is real and substantial. Chichu Art Museum sits mostly underground, its architecture by Tadao Ando shaped around permanent works by Monet, Turrell, and De Maria. The Lee Ufan Museum, also Ando's work, holds paintings and sculpture from the artist's practice since the 1970s. In Honmura village, the Art House Project has installed contemporary work inside preserved old houses, so the cluster of narrow lanes holds both ordinary domestic scale and something stranger. Benesse House functions as hotel, museum, restaurant, and spa in one complex — a place where the boundary between staying and looking is deliberately blurred.

Yet Naoshima is not only its art circuit. The waters around it produce hamachi, sea bream, and kanji — fish raised in the Seto Inland Sea. SOLASHIO, a branded salt made here, continues a tradition that dates back to ancient salt-making culture, evidenced by the Kibeijima salt production ruins. At the fishing park on the island's southern tip, visitors can eat sashimi set meals and fish from the pier. The island holds fishing tournaments through the year, and on those days, the harbor belongs entirely to the locals.