Fodor's Expert Review Northern Culture Museum

On the banks of the Agano River on the Kanbara Plain, the museum is a 40-minute bus ride from Niigata Station. This former estate was established in the Edo period by the Ito family, which, by the 1930s, was the largest landowner in the Kaetsu area, with 8,352 acres of paddy fields, 2,500 acres of forest, and 78 overseers who controlled no fewer than 2,800 tenants. Ito Mansion, built in 1887, was their home for generations until the Land Reform Act of 1946. With its valuable art collection it became this museum, which has 65 rooms, as well as three restaurants and a coffee shop.

Its five teahouses are in different parts of the garden (two of them built later), and numerous natural rocks—mostly from Kyoto—are artistically arranged around the pond. At Niigata ask the tourist information office to point you in the direction of the right bus, which takes 40 minutes. A taxi takes 20 minutes.