Hama-rikyū Gardens

Hama-rikyu is a historic stroll garden at the mouth of the Sumida River where it meets Tokyo Bay, in the city's Chuo ward. Laid out in 1654 as a falconry retreat and seaside villa for a branch of the Tokugawa shogunate, it became the shoguns' own residence from 1709. Its centrepiece is the Shiori-no-ike, a large tidal pond connected to the sea by sluice gates that mixes salt and freshwater carp; at its centre stands the rebuilt Nakajima-no-ochaya, a teahouse reached by wooden bridges. The garden was rebuilt after the 1923 earthquake and the 1945 bombings and opened to the public in 1946. Visitors today walk between three-hundred-year-old black pines, plum and cherry groves, with the Shiodome skyscrapers rising above the trees.