Basho Museum, Iga-Ueno (Museums)

The Basho Memorial Museum in Iga-Ueno was built in 1959 as a tribute to the haiku master by the town where he was born in 1644 and where he returned several times in later life, both for family visits and to have haikai sessions with local poets. For the haiku enthusiast, it is a small, but fine museum.

[Basho Museum, Iga-Ueno]

In the exhibition room are displays of haiku and haiga, the first in beautiful calligraphies by Basho himself or later followers. Copies of early editions of Basho's printed works are also on display. If one does not read Japanese, only the haiga may be of interest. In fact, to fully enjoy this museum, one must be able to read the haiku, even if only in the modern transcriptions provided on the labels. The museum provides an excellent bilingual pamphlet introducing the many other sites associated with Basho in this atmospheric old town.

Address: 117-13 Maru-no-uchi Ueno-shi, Mie pref. Tel. 0595-21-2219
Admission: 10:00-17:00; Cl. Monday, year-end and New Year period.
Access: 5 min. walk from Iga-Ueno-shi Station on the Kintetsu Line, or the bus center in the Sangyo Kaikan.