Chugoku, Japan · City
The Peace Memorial Park and Museum commemorate the atomic bombing, in a rebuilt city carrying a message of reconciliation.
Train — Direct Shinkansen from Osaka/Kyoto
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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.
A memorial and museum dedicated to the atomic bombing, with the Atomic Bomb Dome standing as its testimony.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Kurokawa Kisho's museum, on the Hijiyama hill, reopened on 18 March 2023 after two years of full refurbishment.
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.
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.
The local take on okonomiyaki, layered with yakisoba noodles.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A Zen temple that survived the atomic bombing nearly intact, its main hall designated a National Treasure.
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.
A guided tour of Mazda's headquarters combining a brand museum with a visit to the production line.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 green hill with more than a thousand cherry trees, home to the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art.
A reconstruction of the original castle, destroyed in 1945.
A collection of French Impressionist works and modern Japanese painting near Hiroshima Castle.
A tower next to the Atomic Bomb Dome where visitors leave folded paper cranes.
A 17th-century landscape garden rebuilt after the war, featuring miniature ponds and bridges.
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