The Ehime Museum of History and Culture is one of the most impressive museums in Shikoku.

The building itself is architecturally significant—it’s fascinating, both inside and out. From the car park, a tree-lined avenue takes you towards the cavernous entrance. As you go up the stairs, the building reveals itself gradually. Through the plate glass to the right you can see two of the domed pods that form the exhibition halls. Turn a corner and you find yourself in an immense corridor with a crack down the middle that lets in light. Other corridors go off to the sides leading to window views of gardens with dwarf bamboo.

The first exhibition pod features a very realistic prehistoric thatched dwelling under the vast concrete dome. Attractive and engaging exhibits curve off into the distance. Real archaeological relics are artfully combined with reproductions, graphic panels, and exquisitely detailed dioramas, so that although everything is in Japanese, it’s very easy to understand what you’re looking at. As you move around, various relevant sounds are played—the chanting of sutras for example in the section covering the rise of Buddhism in Shikoku, or festival drums in the section on castle towns.

There are four rooms covering the Prehistoric Period, the Middle Ages, the Edo Period, and the modern period, respectively. A little corner of a town is recreated in the final room, complete with a whole tram. In museum terms, this is something of a bravura performance.

Besides the archaeological section, there’s a dramatic display of Ehime’s various festival paraphernalia. Regular special exhibitions are also held.

Allow yourself at least two hours to see everything. When you’ve finished, you can walk around the outside of the building from the left and follow a steep path down to the historic Unomachi area from behind the museum.