The mountain behind is part of the garden. Ritsurin is a stroll garden laid out against Shiun-zan, with six ponds and a series of artificial hills arranged in relation to one another and to the slope beyond. The mountain is not inside the property, but from within the grounds it stands as an element of the composition — the technique called shakkei, borrowed scenery — which means the design was calculated to include land the garden does not own and cannot control. Move a few metres and the mountain sits differently behind the water, so the same pond becomes another garden depending entirely on where you happen to be standing. The paths were laid to produce that effect and not to get you anywhere efficiently. The teahouse in the grounds puts you low, close to the surface of the water, which is a different proposition again from the raised paths.

The garden is inside Takamatsu, with Kotoden and JR stations nearby, and it works well as a base for moving around Shikoku over several days. Being in the city, the ordinary business of living is close at hand rather than a drive away.

Rather than looking at a garden, go and stand, in order, in the directions it was built to be seen from, and give each one a minute. The garden took something like a century to reach its present form, under successive owners who each added to what was there. Pines are trained here in a way that requires continuous attention, and the work is visible if you look for ladders. Nothing in the garden is finished, which is the condition a stroll garden is designed to be in. Done that way, it becomes a considerably larger place than its acreage suggests it can be.