Hakone Open-Air Museum
The only place we visited in Hakone was the Open-Air Museum. And it was worth it. Depending on interest, one can easily spend 2–3 hours here. And with kids, add another 1–2 hours.
The train ride to the museum is a long one but it's pretty interesting how they have managed to take the train all the way up the mountain. You can see the Japanese way of executing processes in almost a way of ritual.
The museum is a huge park with over 100 modern sculptures spread around. The park has a view of the mountains of Hakone and is landscaped beautifully. They have good and informative audio guide in English about the art works. There is a Picasso Pavillion with a lot of his works but I somehow felt that it is not the reason to go to the museum. The outdoor sculptures and installations are simply fantastic.
For kids, there are two play areas that too are very artistically designed.
The cafe has nice space but very limited things to eat. So if you are planning to spend more time, carry some food. There is a very nice small foot bath right next to the cafe, to relax your tired feet.
At one sculpture gallery, I was trying to show the kids how different two sculptures can be, even though they have the same theme. And Thing 1 casually said, “Yes, this one is realistic and the other one is abstract.”
