Kagawa Hidden Gems

Kagawa is the smallest prefecture and one of the driest, sheltered from both weather systems by mountains, and the historic shortage of water is precisely why it became wheat country and then udon country — rice was difficult, wheat was not. There are on the order of six hundred udon shops here, many of them self-service operations in industrial units where you carry your own bowl, add your own broth and pay by the plate; some open at six in the morning and close by two. Kotohira-gu, the sea god's shrine, sits at the top of 785 stone steps and was one of the few pilgrimages ordinary Edo-period people were permitted to make, occasionally by sending a dog with the money. The Inland Sea islands off the coast — Naoshima, Teshima, Inujima — were depopulated and in some cases industrially poisoned before being rebuilt around contemporary art museums from the 1990s.