Hiketa Old Town

Every prefecture has a site locals point to first; in Kagawa, Hiketa Old Town is usually it.

Hiketa is at the eastern end of Kagawa, against the Tokushima border, and it grew rich on soy sauce, sake and yellowtail. The main street still has the merchant houses, plaster walls and lattice fronts of that period, and it is quiet in a way that the preserved towns on the tourist circuit are not — people live here and the shops sell to them.

The centre of it is Sanshu Izutsu Yashiki, a merchant compound that brewed soy sauce and sake from the Edo period and is now open as a visitor site with a shop, a restaurant and the original main house. The street is free to walk, the grounds are free, and only the main house charges — ¥300. Hiketa is also where farmed yellowtail began in Japan, and the local dish is a marinated buri rice bowl.