Hayama Shiosai Park

photo by Suikotei · CC BY-SA 4.0

It was land belonging to the imperial villa, and the museum displays the emperor's shells.

A Japanese garden twenty metres from the sea, which does not add up until you know why it is there: the land was part of the Hayama Imperial Villa, and the garden is the villa's. Inside the park there is a museum, and what it displays is not a bought collection: it is over five thousand marine specimens collected in Sagami Bay by Emperor Shōwa, who, among other things, was a marine biologist by profession.

The park occupies part of the land attached to the Hayama Imperial Villa and is a municipal historic site as the place where Emperor Taishō died and Shōwa succeeded him. Open to the public since 1987. Within the grounds there is also a tea house, the Isshintei, which can be hired.

ℹ️ Open 8:30–17:00, last entry at 16:30. Tickets 300 yen from high school age up, 150 up to junior high, free for children under five, for residents over seventy and for people with disabilities. **The museum is free but requires the park ticket**: you only pay once. Closed on Mondays, the day after public holidays and from 28 December to 3 January; the museum also closes at the end of the month. The tea house can be hired for 8,000 yen for half a day and 16,000 for a full day, and can be booked up to ninety days ahead. Keikyū bus no. 12 from Zushi to the Isshiki-kaigan bus stop, about twenty minutes.

🚉 葉山 · 4 min walk

Sources: town.hayama.lg.jp · town.hayama.lg.jp · hayama-kankou.jp · 4travel.jp

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