Isuien Garden

依水園

A garden that borrows Todai-ji's gate roof as scenery

⚠ Closed Tuesdays

Hours

9:30am–4:30pm (last entry 4pm); April–May to 5pm (last entry 4:30pm). Closed Tuesdays

Tickets

Adults ¥1,200, high school/university ¥500, ages 6–15 ¥300 (includes Neiraku Museum)

Address

74 Suimon-cho, Nara

Close the gate behind you and the deer, buses and crowds of Noborioji fall away. Past the Edo-period front garden, the Meiji-era back garden opens up: a pond, a grassy mound, and beyond it the roof of Todai-ji's Great South Gate stacked against Mt Wakakusa and Mt Kasuga. It's borrowed scenery, pulling the view outside the wall into the garden, and here it fits so well that it's the whole point. Admission also covers the Neiraku Museum of East Asian antiques.