Hiroshima

Chugoku, Japan · City

What the city was is in the Peace Park and also in small things: some hundred and seventy trees that survived the bomb and still carry plaques, two streetcars from that morning still running in commercial service, the chalk messages survivors left on a school staircase. What it is now: the largest tram network in the country, okonomiyaki with the noodles layered inside, oysters from its own bay and the sake breweries of Saijo.

The essentials

Getting there

Train — Direct Shinkansen from Osaka/Kyoto

What it is genuinely strong in

🧭 Pilgrimage

Frequently asked questions about Hiroshima

What to do in Hiroshima: 67 activities

• Fukuromachi Elementary School 0.75 h must-see

  Just 460 metres from the hypocentre: a hundred and sixty pupils and sixteen teachers died. The messages survivors chalked on the stairwell walls looking for their families are preserved, found under layers of paint in 1999. It is free, shattering, and almost always empty.

• Okonomi-mura, the building with twenty-three griddles 1.5 h must-see

  Three floors (second to fourth) of the Shintenchi Plaza building holding twenty-three okonomiyaki counters packed together, descendants of the post-war street stalls that gathered here in the 1960s. Each has its own knack and its own prices, between 900 and 1,500 yen; many close around 22:00 or 23:00. Locals will tell you there are better single shops, but twenty-three griddles firing at once happens nowhere else.

• Peace Memorial Park and Museum 2.5 h must-see

  A memorial and museum about the atomic bomb, with the Genbaku Dome standing as testimony. A note on tone: these are places of active mourning, with families who still come. No posed photographs in front of the Dome. The museum is hard going for children under about ten and it is worth deciding with that in mind. It is also the most crowded spot in the city: better first thing or last thing in the day.

• Trail of the surviving trees 2.25 h must-see

  Around a hundred and seventy trees survived the bombing and are marked with plaques, twelve of them within a thousand metres of the hypocentre. The closest is a weeping willow at 370 metres that fell and regrew from the root, and the second a holly at 410 that burned and resprouted in 1949. The oleander is the city's official flower precisely because it flowered again in 1946. It lets you read the city through what stayed alive, not only through what was destroyed.

• Talk by a survivor or a legacy successor 1 h booking

  The museum arranges talks by hibakusha and, increasingly, by denshosha, people trained to pass on the testimony of a specific survivor. The average survivor is now over 86 and direct talks are scarce: request weeks or months ahead.

• Toro Nagashi, the floating lanterns 2.5 h only 6 Aug

  Since 1947, at dusk on 6 August paper lanterns are released on the Motoyasu river in front of the Dome. A lantern costs 1,000 yen in cash, you write a message and release it yourself between six and nine in the evening. It follows the official morning ceremony at 8:15.

• A Hiroshima Carp game 3.5 h booking

  The Carp are the city's emblematic team: founded in 1950 with public donations in a flattened city, and funded for years by their own supporters. The atmosphere in the stands, with the red balloons in the seventh inning, is the closest thing Hiroshima has to an everyday festival.

• Ekinishi, the lanes west of the station 2.5 h

  South-west of Hiroshima Station, a grid of alleys of low post-war houses that over the past decade has filled with small bars, craft breweries and one-cook counters without ceasing to be a neighbourhood. This is where locals drink, cheaper and calmer than Nagarekawa; most places open from 18:00 and many have exactly eight seats.

• Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art 1.75 h

  Kurokawa Kisho's museum, on the Hijiyama hill, reopened on 18 March 2023 after two years of full refurbishment.

• Hiroshima kagura, the Wednesday show 2 h only 1 Apr - 31 Dec

  Hiroshima is the heartland of kagura, with hundreds of village troupes performing the legend of the eight-headed serpent in masks and embroidered costumes weighing several kilos. From April to December there is a show every Wednesday at the Prefectural Citizens' Culture Centre: doors at 18:00, curtain at 19:00, about forty-five minutes, with English subtitles. 1,800 yen in advance, 1,500 on the day for unreserved seating.

• Hiroshima oysters in season 1.5 h booking

  Hiroshima produces more than half of Japan's farmed oysters. Between November and February there are oyster festivals at several points around the bay, and they are eaten grilled, fried or in a miso hotpot. Out of season the quality drops sharply.

• Hiroshima spicy tsukemen 1 h

  A local speciality born in the 1950s: cold noodles dipped in a cold sauce of soy, vinegar and chilli, with cabbage, cucumber and pork, and numbered heat levels. Together with soupless tantanmen it makes up the spicy pair that almost no tourist tries.

• Hiroshima-Style Okonomiyaki 1 h

  The local take on okonomiyaki, layered with yakisoba noodles.

• Honkawa Elementary School 0.5 h

  The school closest to the hypocentre, across the river from the Dome. The basement of the 1928 concrete building is preserved, with its blackened walls. It is free and is done on the same morning as Fukuromachi.

• Micchan Sohonten, the original okonomiyaki house 1 h

  Ise Mitsuo, who started with a cart in 1950, is credited with the idea of layering noodles into okonomiyaki. His original shop is still in Hatchobori (ground floor of the Churisu Hatchobori building), with a griddle counter, an almost permanent queue and Tuesdays off; weekday hours are 11:30-14:30 and 17:30-21:00. There are branches and similarly named shops that are not the same house.

• Mitaki-dera 2 h

  A ninth-century temple on the slope of Mount Mitaki, with a two-storey pagoda moved from Wakayama in 1951 in memory of the victims, three waterfalls, hundreds of stone figures and a maple wood. It is the green, silent antidote to the centre, a short train ride away.

• Nagarekawa and Yagenbori after dark 3 h

  The largest drinking district in the whole Chugoku region: a few neon blocks between Chuo avenue and the river, with izakaya at street level, tiny bars scattered over eight-storey buildings and karaoke until dawn. It shares the streets with hostess clubs and there are touts about: if someone stops you on the pavement and quotes a fixed price, don't go in.

• National Peace Memorial Hall 1 h

  A half-buried Tange building inside the park, separate from the museum and free: it holds the database of victims' names and photographs and the written and video testimonies of survivors. You can search by name and listen to readings of memoirs.

• Ninoshima island 4.5 h

  An island off Ujina port, within the city limits, a short ferry crossing away. Its former military quarantine station became an emergency hospital: some 10,000 wounded arrived there between 6 and 26 August 1945 and many died; there are burial pits and monuments. Almost no foreign visitors know it, and it combines with hiking and views of the inland sea.

• Peace Memorial Ceremony, 6 August 2 h only 6 Aug

  At 8:15 the bell rings and the whole city keeps a minute's silence. The central enclosure is reserved for guests and bereaved families, so to see anything you need to be there before 7:00, and around it mourning, the world's press and several protests coexist. Hiroshima's hotels sell out months ahead for that night.

• Rest House: the kimono shop's basement 0.75 h

  The park's information pavilion was the Taishoya kimono store in 1945, 170 metres from the hypocentre. Of the 37 people inside, one survived: Nomura Eizo, who had gone down to the basement to fetch some documents. That basement is open to visit as it is, with the account he later wrote. Free, 8:30 to 18:00 (until 17:00 from December to February).

• Riding the city on the Hiroden streetcar 1.5 h

  Hiroshima kept its trams while the rest of Japan tore theirs up, and now runs the country's largest network, with second-hand cars bought from Osaka, Kyoto and Fukuoka rolling alongside new models. Since 2025 the city fare is a flat 240 yen and the day pass costs 700; that August the line began running straight into the second floor of the new station building, something no other Japanese city has.

• Saijo Sake Matsuri 5 h booking only the second weekend of October

  Every October, before the brewing season, Saijo holds Japan's largest sake festival, with between 100,000 and 200,000 attendees and hundreds of sake from all over the country. Lodging and trains fill up: buy the marquee ticket in advance and go back to Hiroshima to sleep.

• Saijo, the sake town 5.5 h

  It is in Higashihiroshima, a different municipality, about 40 minutes away by train. Its brewery street packs in a dozen historic houses with their brick chimneys and white walls, and several open a tasting room and shop.

• The hypocentre, on an Otemachi pavement 0.5 h

  The bomb exploded roughly 600 metres above the Shima Clinic, not above the Dome. The exact spot is marked with a plaque and an information panel on a narrow pavement in Otemachi, about five minutes' walk from the park, in front of a clinic that is still in business. There is no entrance and no monument: plenty of people walk straight past it.

• The streetcars that survived the bomb 1 h

  Of Hiroden's 123 streetcars, 108 were damaged on 6 August; by the 9th one stretch was running again. Cars 651 and 652 are still in commercial service eighty years on, with no fixed timetable: they turn up mostly on the loop line and in specific seasons, so you either ask or get lucky. Car 654 sits in the Numaji Transportation Museum, which opens its interior once a month.

• Yamato Museum in Kure 3 h Kure · 40 min

  Kure built the battleship Yamato and was Asia's largest naval arsenal. The museum reopened on 23 April 2026 after fourteen months of refurbishment, with the 26-metre 1:10 scale model in the atrium, engines from the Hiro arsenal and a new gallery on the post-war years. Admission 1,000 yen, closed Tuesdays, five minutes' walk from Kure station (35 minutes by train from Hiroshima).

• Ebessan, the November fair 2 h only 18-20 Nov

  From 18 to 20 November the Ebisu shrine, wedged among downtown shops, holds its four-century-old festival: people buy the komazarae good-luck rake and the shops run their seimon-barai sales. On the night of the 20th Chuo avenue closes to traffic for night kagura and taiko. It is the most local of Hiroshima's three big festivals.

• Former Army Clothing Depot 1 h

  Brick and concrete warehouses from 1913 in Minami-ku, the largest surviving buildings in the city: they served as an improvised hospital and hundreds of people died inside. They remain closed for seismic strengthening work the prefecture expects to finish around 2027, so you can only see them from outside, iron doors still buckled by the blast; guided visits inside are occasional and announced at short notice.

• Former Bank of Japan, Hiroshima Branch 1 h

  A 1936 neoclassical building some 380 metres from the hypocentre that withstood the blast and reopened as a bank two days later, with its windows blown out and no power. Entry is free from 10:00 to 17:00: the vault, the parquet floor and the original fireplaces survive, and the basement holds an exhibition on emigration from Hiroshima to the Americas. It now doubles as a space for local artists.

• Fudoin Temple 1 h

  A Zen temple that survived the atomic bombing nearly intact, its main hall designated a National Treasure.

• Futaba-no-Sato historical walk 3 h

  A signposted route at the foot of Mount Futaba that starts ten minutes from the station's north exit and strings together fifteen temples and shrines: Nigitsu, Myojoin, Tsuruhane, the Toshogu, Onaga Tenmangu. Seven of them hold a stone statue of one of the Seven Lucky Gods and can be walked in about two hours; the full circuit runs over ten kilometres. It is free, there is an English map at the station tourist office, and you will meet almost no tourists.

• Gansu and horumon tempura at a counter 1.5 h

  Two things you'll barely find elsewhere: gansu, a flat fried fish-paste patty with vegetables and chilli, and horumon tempura, battered offal dipped in a spicy sauce. Order them at any izakaya in Nagarekawa or Ekinishi for a few hundred yen a piece, with Saijo sake alongside.

• Hiroshima Flower Festival 3 h only 3-5 May

  From 3 to 5 May. It began in 1977 after an improvised parade for a Carp victory and takes over Peace Boulevard with parades, dance and stages. It is the city's big, cheerful celebration, deliberately unlike 6 August.

• Hondori arcade and Kamiyacho 2 h

  Half a kilometre of covered arcade between the Peace Park and Hatchobori, with close to two hundred shops, veteran department stores such as Fukuya and Sogo, and the city's densest cluster of Carp merchandise. Most places open 10:00 to 20:00, and it is the natural walking route between the park and the dinner district.

• Lopez, Yokogawa's jalapeño okonomiyaki 1 h

  Opened by a Guatemalan, Lopez Cabrera, trained at Aohachisho, it has become a Yokogawa institution: classic okonomiyaki with jalapeño plus a few Central American dishes, listed in the Michelin Bib Gourmand for Hiroshima. The place is tiny, barely a dozen seats at the counter, so you either come early or wait outside.

• Mazda Museum and Factory 1.5 h booking

  A guided tour of Mazda's headquarters combining the brand's museum with a visit to the production line. Booking is only through Mazda's official website: they do not accept bookings from agencies or tour packages, and under-thirteens must be accompanied. The English-language places go fast.

• Military city: Imperial Headquarters and the Motomachi bunker 1.5 h

  Inside the castle grounds lie the foundations of the Imperial General Headquarters where Emperor Meiji spent seven months in 1894-95 directing the war against China: Hiroshima was then Japan's de facto capital, which is why it was a military target. A few steps away is the bunker of the Chugoku Military District headquarters, from which a mobilised schoolgirl sent the first report of the destruction; the interior is sealed off because of falling concrete, so only the entrance is visible.

• Mount Ogonzan at dusk 2 h

  A 221-metre hill in Minami-ku with a refurbished 360-degree lookout over the delta, Ujina port and the Inland Sea islands. You drive or take a taxi up a narrow road, about twenty minutes from the centre; by bus you face a long climb on foot, and after dark there is no public transport back.

• Municipal Manga Library 1.5 h

  A public library specialising in manga in Hijiyama park, with some 154,000 volumes. You read on the spot without being a resident and it is free; the collection is in Japanese, but the place is a rarity.

• Okonomiyaki Monogatari by the station 1 h

  On the sixth floor of the Full Focus Building, two minutes from Hiroshima Station's south exit: a Showa-style arcade recreated with several okonomiyaki counters in a row and picture windows over the city. It is the practical choice if your shinkansen gets in late or leaves early, since they serve well into the night.

• Okunoshima, island of rabbits and poison gas 7 h Takehara · 2 h

  An island in Takehara where the Army secretly manufactured poison gas between 1929 and 1945, erased from the maps of the day: the ruins of the plants remain, along with a small poison gas museum that also covers what happened to the workers. Today seven to nine hundred feral rabbits roam it — not descendants of the test animals but of a later release. Train to Tadanoumi (about two hours) then a fifteen-minute ferry for 360 yen; rabbit food is sold at the port, not on the island, and the rabbits are not to be picked up.

• Ondo no Seto and the Kure coast 4 h

  A strait barely 90 metres wide between the Kure peninsula and the island of Kurahashi, crossed by the red arch of the Ondo bridge and tied to the legend of Taira no Kiyomori. The park on Mount Takatoyama, with thousands of azaleas, is the classic viewpoint. It is in the municipality of Kure, a good hour away.

• Oysters aboard the Kanawa barge 2 h booking

  A restaurant set inside a barge moored on the Motoyasu river within sight of the Dome, serving oysters from its own bay beds raw, grilled, fried and over rice. It works by kaiseki set menu, it is one of the expensive places in town and you must book; raw oysters are only served in the cold season, autumn to spring.

• Prefectural Art Museum and Hiroshima's Dalí 1.5 h

  Right next to Shukkei-en and connected to it by an internal door: modern Japanese painting, Asian crafts and Dalí's Dream of Venus, plus work by Magritte, Calder and Noguchi. The permanent collection costs 500 yen and the combined ticket with the garden 600. Closed Mondays, and every floor has a window onto the garden.

• Sandankyo Gorge 7 h Akiota · 90 min

  A sixteen-kilometre gorge carved by the river in the town of Akiota, with waterside paths and rowing boats crossing the Kurobuchi and Sarutobi pools. It is the prefecture's great autumn-foliage destination in early November. A real warning: sections closed by the 2021 floods have still not reopened, the boats rest on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and the trail has no lighting and patchy phone signal — check the town hall's status page before taking the bus from Hiroshima's central bus terminal.

• Sanfrecce Hiroshima at the Edion Peace Wing 3 h booking

  A stadium opened on 1 February 2024 with 28,520 seats, built in the central park a few minutes' walk from the Dome. It has a museum, shops and restaurants open on non-match days too: the best example of the Hiroshima that looks forward.

• The brushes of Kumano 3.5 h Kumano · 50 min

  The town of Kumano makes most of Japan's brushes, for calligraphy and for make-up, and is home to Fude no Sato Kobo, a museum and workshop where artisans work in front of you and sell direct. A new workshop building opened in September 2026 and construction around the site continues, so check parking and access first; it is about fifty minutes by bus from Hiroshima station. On the autumn equinox the town holds the Fude Matsuri, with calligraphy written at giant scale.

• The submarine Akishio in Kure 1.5 h Kure · 40 min

  Across from the Yamato Museum sits a real submarine of over two thousand tonnes, beached on land and walked through inside, bunks and control room left as they were. It is the Maritime Self-Defense Force museum and entry is free; closed Tuesdays. Worth knowing that it is an armed forces institution and tells the story of minesweeping and the post-war navy from that point of view.

• Toukasan, the yukata festival 3 h only early June

  In early June, the Enryu-ji temple festival marks the start of summer and the city brings out the yukata: three days when people go out in summer kimono along the central avenue, with stalls and music. You can rent one downtown to take part.

• Urabukuro, the centre's bartenders' quarter 2 h

  Behind the Hondori arcade, the Fukuromachi and Kamiyacho streets locals call Urabukuro are full of classic cocktail bars, vinyl bars and student haunts on upper floors with no shopfront. Hiroshima has a long bartending tradition and counters that have been open since the 1950s; most charge a 500 to 1,000 yen cover that is not always advertised.

• World Peace Memorial Cathedral 0.75 h

  A 1954 Catholic church designed by Murano Togo and built with donations from around the world, driven by the German Jesuit Hugo Lassalle, himself a survivor; Germany gave the organ and the bells. It is an Important Cultural Property, mixing brick, concrete and Japanese lattice work, and entry is free — but it is a working parish and is not open to visitors during services.

• Yokogawa, the neighbourhood one station over 2 h

  Two stops north-west of the centre, around the square where Japan's first bus service began running in 1905 — there is a replica of the vehicle on display. It is a district of long-standing shops, small cafés and neighbourhood taverns with no tourists, with a street music festival in spring, and it is the walking gateway to Mitaki-dera.

• Yuki Onsen 14 h booking

  It lies within the Hiroshima city limits, though an hour and a half from the station: naturally radioactive waters with open-air baths above the river and two places to stay. It is the city's only real onsen.

• A Hiroshima Dragonflies game 2.5 h booking

  The city's basketball team won the Japanese league in 2024 and the pan-Asian EASL title in 2025, and plays from October to May at the Sun Plaza (about six thousand seats) and the Green Arena in Motomachi, in weekend double-headers. Practical warning: the official ticketing platform usually demands a Japanese mobile number, so the box office on the day is often easier.

• A neighbourhood bathhouse in Dobashi 1.5 h

  Dobashi Onsen, two minutes from the Dobashi tram stop and a short walk from the Peace Park, is one of the few neighbourhood sento still open in the centre: old tilework, hot pools and a small stone sauna. Since August 2025 the prefecture caps the adult bath at 500 yen, with the sauna charged separately. Wash before getting in, and large tattoos may be a problem.

• Children's Museum and planetarium 1.5 h

  At the northern end of the Peace Park, beside the Children's Peace Monument: hands-on science floors that are free to enter and a large-dome planetarium charged separately, around 510 yen for adults. It is the obvious move when it rains, or when the children have had enough of the atomic bomb. Closed Mondays.

• Hijiyama Park 1.5 h

  A green hill with more than a thousand cherry trees, home to the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art.

• Hiroshima Botanical Garden 2.5 h Hiroshima (Saeki-ku) · 50 min

  On a hillside in Saeki-ku facing the bay: eighteen hectares with one of Japan's largest tropical greenhouses and collections of begonias and cacti. Admission 510 yen, closed Fridays, reached by bus from Itsukaichi station. It is a long way from the centre and only worth it if you give it half a day.

• Hiroshima Castle 1 h

  A reconstruction of the original castle, destroyed in 1945. IMPORTANT CHANGE: the keep closed to the public on 22 March 2026, after 68 years, because of the deterioration of the 1958 concrete reconstruction and its lack of earthquake resistance, and it has still not been decided whether it will be rebuilt in wood or reinforced. The grounds, the moat, Gokoku Shrine and the Ninomaru buildings rebuilt in wood remain open.

• Hiroshima City Folk Museum 1 h

  Housed in the red-brick 1911 canning factory of the Army provisions depot at Ujina, an A-bombed building: part of the steel beam bent by the blast more than three kilometres away is preserved in the entrance hall. It tells where raft-grown oysters, sewing needles and emigration to the Americas came from. Admission 100 yen, closed Mondays, twenty minutes by streetcar from the station.

• Hiroshima Museum of Art 1.5 h

  A collection of French Impressionist works and modern Japanese painting near Hiroshima Castle.

• Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra 2 h booking

  The region's only professional orchestra, founded in 1963, plays mainly at HBG Hall, ten minutes from the Peace Park. Every August it programmes the Peace concert around the 6th, which sells out fast; the rest of the year there are subscription concerts most months, with tickets through the orchestra's own website.

• Numaji Transportation Museum 2 h Hiroshima (Asaminami-ku) · 30 min

  At the end of the Astram line in Nagarakuji: a huge model of the city, a vehicle collection and streetcar 654, an A-bomb survivor whose interior opens to the public once a month. Admission 510 yen for adults, 250 for high-school students and over-65s, free up to junior high; open 9:00 to 17:00, closed Mondays.

• Orizuru Tower Observation Deck 1 h

  A tower next to the Atomic Bomb Dome where visitors leave folded paper cranes.

• Shukkei-en Garden 1 h

  A 17th-century landscape garden rebuilt after the war, with ponds and miniature bridges. A fact that completely changes how you visit it: the garden has a tree that survived the bombing and, beneath the lawn, a mass grave of victims.

• The oyster rafts in the bay 1.5 h

  From the Ninoshima ferry or the promenade at Ujina port you can see the rows of bamboo rafts and floats from which the oyster ropes hang: the hanging-culture method was developed here, and it explains why the bay looks gridded. In winter the boats hauling up the ropes pass at first light, and from the shore you suddenly understand where the oysters on the menu come from.

What only happens on specific dates

• Hiroshima kagura, the Wednesday show 1 Apr - 31 Dec
• Hiroshima Flower Festival 3-5 May
• Toukasan, the yukata festival early June
• Toro Nagashi, the floating lanterns 6 Aug
• Peace Memorial Ceremony, 6 August 6 Aug
• Saijo Sake Matsuri the second weekend of October
• Ebessan, the November fair 18-20 Nov

Ready-made routes through Hiroshima

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