Nagoya

Chubu, Japan · City

The city where you watch Japan being manufactured: the Toyota museum traces the jump from the loom to the car with the machines running, and an hour away you can look down from a walkway onto a real assembly line, kanban cards moving along it. The castle has rebuilt its residential palace in cypress with traditional joinery — you go in barefoot — and you eat hitsumabushi, grilled eel served three different ways in the one bowl.

The essentials

Getting there

Train — Chubu Centrair International Airport, a hub on the Tokaido Shinkansen

Frequently asked questions about Nagoya

What to do in Nagoya: 96 activities

• Honmaru Goten palace at the castle 1.5 h must-see

  The castle's residential palace, burnt down in 1945 and rebuilt between 2009 and 2018 in hinoki cypress, with traditional joinery and copies of the original screen paintings, which survived because they had been taken down and stored during the war. You enter barefoot and nothing may be touched. It is covered by the castle's 500-yen ticket (9:00-16:30, buildings until 16:00). Worth knowing: the main keep has been closed since May 2018 over earthquake risk, and its timber reconstruction is not expected before 2032, so for now it can only be seen from the outside.

• Hitsumabushi (Grilled Eel) 1.5 h must-see

  A local eel dish served three different ways in the same bowl.

• Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology 2.5 h must-see

  The history of Japan's textile and automobile industries, with live demonstrations.

• Asuke: four floats and two hundred matchlocks 5 h Asuke, Toyota · 95 min only the second Saturday and Sunday of October

  The annual festival of Asuke Hachimangu, in the village of Asuke, and what sets it apart is not the four floats from the Nishimachi, Shinmachi, Honmachi and Tamachi districts but the noise: a corps of two hundred matchlock guns firing blank powder, on the Saturday through the districts from sunrise to sunset and on the Sunday inside the precinct. They warn that the report is considerable and that ear plugs are advisable. On Sunday afternoon, with the floats already hauled into the grounds, comes the bonten-nage, and here the sources do not agree: one says a bonten hung from the tip of a bamboo pole is thrown before the altar, another that it is a bamboo tube fought over. Afterwards the floats are hung with lanterns and return to their districts across the bridge. There is also bo-no-te, the farmers' martial art of this area. The shrine's honden, of 1466, has been a national Important Cultural Property since 27 May 1907, and that is the place's serious credential, because the festival itself carries no designation in any source consulted. It falls on the second Saturday and Sunday of October: the 10th and 11th in 2026, the 11th and 12th in 2025. Free to attend. Mind the logistics: Asuke has no railway and you come by bus from Toyota-shi station, about fifty minutes, and the sources disagree on whether there is parking. And no, it does not coincide with the maples of Korankei, which are a November thing.

• Atsuta's forest and Nobunaga's wall 1.5 h

  Behind the main hall, six hectares of woodland hide what almost nobody looks for: the Nobunaga-bei, a mud-and-tile wall Oda Nobunaga paid for in 1560 in thanks for his victory at Okehazama; the thousand-year-old camphor tree attributed to Kobo Daishi; and Kamichikama-sha, where people leave clay pots with very specific requests. The grounds are open twenty-four hours and free, but this is a working shrine: no tripods, and no photographs inside the main hall.

• Chubu Electric Power MIRAI TOWER 1 h

  Japan's first integrated TV tower (1954), designed by Tachu Naito, older than Tokyo Tower and listed as a National Important Cultural Property: the first modern tower to be given that status. The observation deck at 90 metres costs 1,300 yen, with opening hours that shift every few weeks; during the seasons of evening projections the night ticket rises to 1,800 and the deck shuts for a couple of hours between the day and night sessions. There is also a fifteen-room hotel inside.

• Ghibli Park 3.5 h booking

  A theme park dedicated to Studio Ghibli in Nagakute, Aichi, easily accessible from Nagoya; requires tickets booked in advance for a specific date and time, often through a lottery system.

• Hitsumabushi at Atsuta Horaiken 2 h

  The house that registered the word hitsumabushi in the late 19th century and still serves it in a building with a courtyard next to Atsuta. It costs 4,950 yen (6,600 for the one-and-a-half portion) and there are no reservations except for the kaiseki menu: you take a number and wait, sometimes more than an hour. The main house opens 11:30-14:00 and 16:30-20:30 and closes Wednesdays and the second and fourth Thursday; the shrine branch closes Tuesdays and the second and fourth Monday, so one of them is always open.

• Kusanagi-kan and the treasures of Atsuta 1.5 h

  Atsuta keeps the sword Kusanagi, one of the three imperial regalia, which is never displayed and which not even the priests see. What you can see is in two buildings: the Kusanagi-kan, devoted to swords, with the largest naginata in Japan and replicas you are allowed to lift to feel the weight, and the Homotsukan, showing part of the more than six thousand objects donated to the shrine. Each costs 500 yen, both open 9:00 to 16:30 (last entry 16:00) and both close on the last Thursday of the month and the day before.

• Miso-katsu 1 h

  Breaded pork cutlet under a thick red miso sauce: the flagship dish of Nagoya cooking, eaten here in a different way from the rest of the country.

• Owari Tsushima Tenno Matsuri, the lantern boats 4 h Tsushima · 25 min only the fourth weekend of July

  On the Saturday night of the fourth weekend of July (in 2026, the 25th, from 18:00), five barges covered in paper lanterns sail across the Tenno river pond in front of Tsushima shrine: each carries a half-dome of three hundred and sixty-five lights, one for every day of the year, and a mast of twelve, one per month. The next morning at 9:10 the same boats go out stripped down and carrying doll figures instead. It is on the UNESCO list; twenty-five minutes from Nagoya on the Meitetsu and then fifteen on foot.

• Tebasaki, Nagoya chicken wings 1.5 h

  Chicken wings fried twice, glazed and heavily peppered; the compulsory partner to beer in the taverns of Sakae.

• The Miya Matsuri: four floats that go into the sea, when they do 5 h Miya, Gamagori · 70 min only two days in late October; the sources disagree on the rule

  It is written Mitani and read Miya, and what makes it singular is that the floats go into the sea. Four of them, each hauled by some two hundred men, come down to Miya beach on the Sunday at about a quarter to eleven, advance some four hundred metres through the shallows and come out again in a quarter of an hour. The town has six districts: four field a float, one brings out a sacred boat and another two mikoshi, and the festival moves between two shrines, Hakken to the west and Wakamiya to the east. But come forewarned, which is why this entry promises nothing: in 2026 the sea crossing WAS CANCELLED. The official notice speaks not of safety in the abstract but of something very concrete: sand laid before Obon had piled up at the exit ramp and, after repeated levelling, a safe run could not be assured. The rest of the programme went ahead. And it is not the first time: the sea crossing vanished after 1960, when the shore was filled in, and did not return until 1995. Before counting on it, confirm it. The festival is dated to 1696, though that is tradition and the earliest document mentioning it is from 1712, and it has been a municipal intangible folk cultural property since 1961. The dates have no reliable rule either: one source says the third Saturday and Sunday of October, but in 2026 it fell on the 24th and 25th, which is the fourth.

• The morning service and red bean toast 1 h

  In Nagoya, ordering a coffee in the morning includes a free breakfast: egg, toast and sometimes salad. The local version is toast with sweet red bean paste.

• The Toba fire: two two-tonne torches and an augury 4 h Toba, Nishio (Aichi) · 70 min only the second Sunday of February; if it rains it moves to the Monday

  Two torches five metres tall and two tonnes each, of kaya thatch over sixty green bamboo poles, carried some twenty metres by between a hundred and a hundred and fifty parishioners. At eight in the evening they are lit, and the men of the village's two districts, Fukuji and Kenji, go into the fire to pull out the sacred trunk and the twelve ropes that stand for the months of the year, and to offer them at the altar before the other side does. Each district sends one kami-otoko, aged twenty-five, and locally the men who cling to the frame and shake it are called cats, for the posture and the shape of the hood. Earlier, at three in the afternoon, they go down to purify themselves in the sea: a kilometre at a run to the shore and in up to the neck, in February. What burns is an augury, not a show: plenty of smoke means a rainy year, bamboo cracking loudly means thunder, and if Fukuji wins a good harvest is expected in the hills, while if Kenji wins drought or upheaval are feared. It used to fall on the seventh day of the first lunar month and since 1970 it is the second Sunday of February. Free to watch, but saving a spot is not allowed: anything left on the ground before seven in the morning is removed by shrine staff. An Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property since 6 February 2004. Get off at Mikawa-Toba on the Meitetsu Gamagori line, then ten minutes on foot; there is no parking in the precinct. No one publishes a finishing time, so check the journey back before you go.

• Tokugawa Art Museum 2 h

  The inherited treasure of the Owari branch of the Tokugawa, including the 12th-century illustrated Genji scrolls, which because of their fragility are shown only a few days a year.

• Toyota assembly line tour 3 h booking Toyota · 60 min

  Toyota shows one of its plants in Toyota City for free: from a walkway you look down on the real assembly line, with the andon cord being pulled and kanban cards moving around, while the guide explains the production system half the world copied. Weekdays only, with online booking that opens months ahead and sells out as soon as it does, and photography absolutely forbidden. The meeting point is the Toyota Kaikan (9:30-17:00, closed Sundays), an hour from Nagoya by Meitetsu train plus bus.

• Toyota's Koromo festival: eight floats and a storm of paper 5 h Toyota · 60 min only the third Sunday of October and the Saturday before

  Toyota is not only the factory: the old town brings out eight floats of four or five tonnes and nearly six metres, one per district, and parades them through a storm of coloured paper thrown down from above to shouts of oisa. The confetti is not an imported flourish but began as a gesture of purification, in place of salt, added to the leading float, the hanaguruma. Saturday is the shigaku, with the floats going round the districts and, at seven in the evening, the shichido-mairi: people from the eight districts circle the grounds of Koromo Shrine seven times with lanterns. Sunday is the honraku: at ten the floats charge into the precinct one by one, at four they are pulled out, and at the junction in front of the bank they take leave of one another in what is called here the weeping parting. At night there are fireworks on the bank of the Yahagi river. The eight floats are designated tangible folk cultural property by both the prefecture and the city, though no source gives the year. It is one of the three great festivals of Mikawa, with those of Chiryu and Asuke. And this has to be said: in 2022 a float reversing killed a man who was holding the steering beam. In bad weather the float run may be called off, decided each morning and announced on the festival website. It is a ten-minute walk from Toyota-shi station, but both days bring road closures and bus diversions, and the shrine car park is shut.

• Tsushima in autumn: sixteen floats with automata, and not the UNESCO one 5 h Tsushima · 25 min only the first Sunday of October and the Saturday before, which can fall in September

  First things first, because the confusion is guaranteed: Tsushima has two big festivals and this is not the famous one. The July festival, with lantern boats on the river, is the one on the UNESCO list; this autumn one is not. It is worth it all the same: sixteen floats from four districts, every one carrying wooden automata, which perform in turn before the gate of Tsushima Shrine, plus a score of kagura going round the town. The move to watch is called kurumakiri: the front wheels are lifted and the whole float is spun on the spot. It is not an old festival in the usual sense: the floats are, some from the early eighteenth century, but what is gathered into a single festival are four separate district celebrations, brought together in 1926 to mark the shrine being raised in rank. The rule for the date has a catch worth reading carefully: it is the first Sunday of October and the day before, so the Saturday can fall on 30 September. In 2026 it was the 3rd and 4th of October. It is a fifteen-minute walk from Tsushima station, one kilometre, and those days bring traffic jams. No source consulted publishes a heritage designation for the autumn festival, a price, attendance figures, or what happens if it rains.

• A night in Sakae and Nishiki 3 h

  The largest nightlife district in central Japan, with the TV tower and the Oasis 21 spaceship lit up behind it.

• Aichi Prefectural Office and City Hall, imperial crown architecture 1 h

  Two 1930s office buildings facing each other beside the castle, with Western concrete bodies and a Japanese castle roof set on top: the teikan style the militarist era imposed before the war. Both are Important Cultural Properties, both can be entered freely during office hours on weekdays, and you can go up to the Prefectural Office roof terrace; the ceremonial rooms open only on booked tours and on Culture Day, 3 November. The copper roof was restored in 2025 and has gone back to its original reddish colour.

• Ankake spaghetti at Yokoi 1 h

  Extra-thick spaghetti, fried in lard and smothered in a dark, thick, peppery sauce invented here in the 1960s for people who worked with their hands. The original house, Yokoi Sumiyoshi, is on a second floor in Sakae: the classic plate, the Milanese with sausage, ham, bacon and vegetables, costs 1,250 yen. Open 11:00-15:00 and 17:00-21:00, lunch only on Tuesdays, closed Mondays. It is not Italian cooking and does not pretend to be.

• Arako Kannon and the Enku buddhas 2 h

  This temple in the Nakagawa district holds around 1,250 carvings by the wandering monk Enku, more than a quarter of all that survive in Japan: figures hacked out of rough wood with an axe, many no bigger than a finger. They are shown only on the second Saturday of each month, 13:00 to 16:00, for 500 yen and with no photography. The rest of the year the grounds are free to enter, and there stands the 1536 pagoda, the oldest wooden building in the city.

• Atsuta Jingu Shrine 1.5 h

  One of the most important Shinto shrines in Japan, surrounded by centuries-old forest.

• Atsuta Matsuri 3 h only 5 Jun

  On June 5, five towers of 365 lanterns each are raised at the gates of the region's most revered shrine, with fireworks at the end.

• Banshoji temple and the Nobunaga automaton 0.75 h

  The Oda family's funerary temple, founded by Nobunaga's father, sits in the middle of the Osu shopping arcade and is today a black multi-storey building with projections on its wall. Five times a day (10:00, 12:00, 14:00, 16:00 and 18:00) a niche in the facade opens and an automaton plays out, in four minutes, the scene in which the teenage Nobunaga hurled the incense at his father's altar. You watch from the street and it is free.

• Bunka no Michi: the district of white walls 2.5 h

  Between the castle and Tokugawaen survives the Shirakabe-Shumokucho district, where the textile industrialists who founded Toyota and Noritake lived: whitewashed earthen walls, storehouses and interwar mansions. Two houses can be visited inside: the Futaba House, the orange art deco home of actress and businesswoman Sadayakko Kawakami, and the Imoto family's Shumokukan, with its stained glass; each costs 200 yen and both close on Mondays. The rest is a free walk through streets the city has barely kept anywhere else.

• Doteni and miso oden at a standing bar 1.5 h

  Beef offal and tendon simmered for days in a pot of red miso that is never quite emptied, plus egg, konjac and fried tofu sunk in the same broth: eaten off skewers, standing or at the counter, for around 200-400 yen a piece. Shimasho, in Fushimi, has been doing it since 1949 and is one of the few places that makes clear that miso in Nagoya is not a seasoning but the base of everything. It closes early for an izakaya, and all day on Sundays.

• Endoji and Shikemichi, the Nagoya the bombs missed 2 h

  Northwest of the station, one of the few blocks the fires of 1945 did not take. Shikemichi is a street of Edo-period merchant storehouses, widened after a fire in 1700, still showing the little yane-gami shrines families set on their roofs; next to it the Endoji arcade, one of the oldest covered shopping streets in the city, mixes lifelong local shops with cafés and bookshops in restored houses. Free to walk and best by day; many shops shut around 18:00.

• Hatcho miso brewery in Okazaki 1.5 h

  Visit to the two-century-old cedar vats, loaded with stones stacked by hand, where the red miso that defines all of Aichi's cooking matures for years.

• Higashiyama Sky Tower 1 h

  A 134-metre tower raised on an 80-metre hill inside Higashiyama park: the deck ends up 214 metres above sea level and on a clear day you can see the Japanese Alps. It costs 300 yen on its own or 640 with a combined ticket for the zoo and botanical garden. Open until 21:30 (last entry 21:00) and closed on Mondays; since the zoo shuts at 16:50, evening visitors have to use the tower's own entrance.

• Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens 4 h

  One of Japan's most visited zoos, with a 1937 greenhouse designated an Important Cultural Property and an urban forest around it.

• INAX Live Museum in Tokoname 2.5 h Tokoname · 35 min

  Seven brick buildings of Tokoname's old tile factory, now a museum: a 1921 bottle kiln you walk through from the inside, the World Tile Museum with Babylonian and medieval Islamic pieces, and even a room on the history of the toilet, which in this city of sanitary ceramics is no joke. Combined ticket 1,000 yen, 10:00 to 17:00 (last entry 16:30), closed Wednesdays. There are tile-painting and mosaic workshops, and those are worth booking.

• Kabuki at the Misonoza theatre 4 h booking

  Nagoya's theatre since 1896, rebuilt in 2018 inside a tower in Fushimi with sixteen hundred seats and a hanamichi. It does not programme kabuki all year: the fixed date is the Kinshu Kabuki in October, with the big names of the genre, while the other months bring commercial theatre, musicals and enka shows. Kabuki tickets run from 6,000 yen in the back row to 20,000 in the stalls, with a student rate of around 5,000, and they sell out weeks in advance.

• Kinshachi Yokocho, the castle's food street 1.5 h

  Two rows of eateries built right against the castle gates and opened in 2018: the Yoshinao zone, by the east gate, gathers the long-established names of Nagoya cooking (miso katsu, hitsumabushi, kishimen, tebasaki), while the Muneharu zone, by the main gate, goes for newer takes. Entry is free and outside the ticket gates, and it keeps serving after the castle closes at 16:30, which is exactly when that turns out to be useful.

• Kishimen and tenmusu 1 h

  Flat wheat noodles, eaten even standing up on the station platforms, and rice balls stuffed with tempura prawn.

• Kiso river rapids and cormorant fishing 3 h booking

  At Inuyama you run the river in a flat-bottomed boat and, in summer, watch nighttime fishing with trained cormorants, a technique more than 1,000 years old.

• Kiyosu Castle and the Nobunaga trail 2.5 h

  From here Nobunaga set out for the battle that launched him to power. Japan's three unifiers, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu, were all born in this area, and the city has put together a trail of their sites.

• Korankei gorge in autumn 4 h

  Four thousand maples planted by a 17th-century monk fill a ravine with red, lit up at night in November; it is the region's great autumn destination.

• Kuragaike museum and the Toyota founder's house 2 h booking Toyota · 70 min

  Toyota's other museum, far less visited than the Kaikan: here are the brand's first car, the 1936 Toyoda AA, the looms it all started with and, moved here stone by stone, the house where Kiichiro Toyoda, founder of the car company, lived. It reopened in March 2025 after seismic strengthening work. Entry is free but must be booked online, and it sits beside Lake Kuragaike on the outskirts of Toyota City.

• LEGOLAND Japan Resort 5 h booking

  A LEGO theme park with more than 40 attractions geared toward families with young children, next to the port of Nagoya.

• Miso katsu at Yabaton 1.25 h

  The place that made miso katsu popular, opened in 1947 near Osu and known today by its apron-wearing piglet logo. The house dish is waraji tonkatsu, a pork loin the size of a straw sandal, drenched in a sauce of red miso aged a year and a half. Open 11:00 to 21:00 every day and no reservations; if the sweet sauce sounds alarming, you can ask for it on the side and dip. There is a queue at lunchtime and a branch in the station that moves faster.

• Miso-nikomi udon 1 h

  Very firm udon simmered in a clay pot with red miso broth and served boiling; it throws you the first time and hooks you the second.

• Miya Kishimen in the Atsuta woods 0.75 h

  Inside the shrine grounds, at tables under the trees, kishimen comes in its barest form: flat noodles, a clear tamari-and-bonito broth, spring onion and a heap of katsuobushi shavings on top, around 800 yen a bowl. It only opens by day (roughly 9:00-16:30, with the kitchen closing earlier) and there is a queue at lunchtime. It is the opposite of the station-platform stands: here you sit down and take your time.

• MIZKAN MUSEUM and the vinegar that made sushi 3 h booking Handa · 40 min

  In Handa, beside a canal lined with black warehouses, stands the Mizkan family house, where in the 19th century they began making vinegar from sake lees and shipping it to Edo: without that cheap vinegar there would have been no nigiri. The guided tour lasts about ninety minutes, includes a full-size replica of the cargo boat and costs 500 yen. Booking online is required, it closes on Thursdays and the last entry is at 15:00.

• Nagashima complex: rides, lights and onsen 6 h

  An hour away: one of Japan's largest roller coaster parks, the country's biggest winter light festival and a spa with real hot spring water, all on the same site.

• Nagoya Castle 1.5 h

  An iconic castle famous for the golden dolphin ornaments on its roof.

• Nagoya Matsuri and the karakuri floats 3 h only one weekend in mid-October

  In October Japan's three unifiers parade through the city accompanied by floats carrying Edo-period wooden automata.

• Nagoya Noh Theatre 2.5 h

  Facing the castle, a 1997 building put up around a stage made from a single piece of cypress, with the pine painted on the back wall: the Owari noh lineage was kept alive by the Tokugawa branch here and local schools are still active. The exhibition room with masks and costumes is free to enter (9:00-17:00) even when there is no performance; the monthly performances cost considerably less than in Tokyo or Kyoto, but almost never come with English subtitles or audio guide.

• Nagoya Sumo Tournament at IG Arena 4 h booking only fifteen days in July

  Since 2025 the July tournament has been held at IG Arena, Aichi prefecture's new 17,000-seat hall, which opened on the tournament's first day. It used to be held at Dolphins Arena, the old prefectural gymnasium: guides still giving that address are out of date. It is one of the six official grand tournaments and runs only on those dates.

• Noritake Garden 2 h

  The old porcelain factory turned into a park, with brick kilns preserved and a workshop for painting your own plate.

• Ogura toast in a 1960s coffee house 1 h

  Thick-sliced bread toasted with butter and topped with a layer of sweet azuki bean paste: Nagoya's café invention, born when students started dipping their toast in zenzai. At Lyon, a Sakae basement with red upholstery going since 1963, it is served at any hour of the day and not just as part of the free breakfast. Two other classic addresses: Konparu, in Osu, for its breaded prawn sandwich, and Kako, in the Shirakabe district, for its version with melted cheese.

• Osu Daido Chonin Matsuri, the street performers' festival 4 h only the second weekend of October

  For one weekend in October the Osu arcades turn into a stage: jugglers, nankin tamasudare, trained monkeys and local officials in costume. What sets it apart is the oiran dochu, the agonisingly slow parade of courtesans on thirty-centimetre clogs tracing figure-eights with each foot, a reconstruction of Edo pleasure-quarter life performed by residents rather than professionals. It is free and it gets packed: the streets become impassable from midday on.

• Osu Kannon antiques market 2 h

  On the 18th and 28th of every month the courtyard of Osu Kannon temple fills with antique dealers from six in the morning until four in the afternoon: used kimono, mismatched ceramics, tin toys, costume jewellery and Asian bric-a-brac. It is free and goes ahead whatever the weather. The 18th coincides with the temple fair, so there are more people and amazake is handed out; if you want peace and quiet for haggling, go on the 28th and go early.

• Osu Kannon Temple 1 h

  A 14th-century temple moved here by Ieyasu, with one of Japan's most important libraries of ancient manuscripts beneath the building itself.

• Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium 2.5 h

  One of the largest aquariums in Japan, home to orcas, belugas, and a recreation of the Antarctic Ocean.

• Sauna in Sakae, the Nagoya way 3 h

  Nagoya is where aufguss caught on in Japan: the session in which a staff member pours scented water on the stones and fans the steam over each bather. At Wellbe Sakae there is a session every hour from 13:00 to 1:00, a conifer-wood sauna, an ice bath and a cold pool that drops below ten degrees; two hours costs around 2,000 yen on weekdays (2,500 at weekends) and it is open twenty-four hours. Bathhouses in the area generally turn away visible tattoos, so it is worth asking before you pay.

• Science Museum and its planetarium 2.5 h

  Inside a steel globe suspended between two buildings is the world's largest planetarium dome, 35 metres across.

• SCMAGLEV and Railway Park 2.5 h

  JR Central's railway museum by the port, featuring historic bullet trains and the maglev train that holds the world speed record.

• Seto, the town that gave crockery its name 4 h Seto · 35 min

  In Japanese, tableware is called setomono, things from Seto, and this is the town: a thousand years of pottery half an hour from Nagoya on the Meitetsu Seto line. You can walk the Kamagaki no Komichi, an alley whose walls are built from used kiln moulds, the Setogura museum housed in the old station, and the Maneki-neko Museum, the largest devoted to the lucky cat, open 10:00 to 17:00 for around 300 yen, closed Tuesdays and with a workshop where you can paint your own.

• Setomono Matsuri, the crockery fair 5 h Seto · 35 min only the second weekend of September

  On the second weekend of September, some two hundred potters' stalls line the Seto river selling both first-quality and seconds at factory prices: Japan's great ceramics market since 1932. On the Saturday night around a thousand fireworks are packed into twenty minutes, between 18:25 and 18:45. Entry is free with no paid seating; take the Meitetsu Seto line to Owari-Seto.

• Sky Promenade at Midland Square 1 h

  An open-air observation deck 220 metres up, on floors 44 to 46 of Toyota's tower right opposite the station: you climb through an open shaft between two walls, with no glass in the way. Open 11:00 to 22:00 (last entry 21:30), 1,000 yen on weekdays and 1,200 at weekends. Because it is outdoors, strong wind or a storm can mean restricted access, and tripods and umbrellas are not allowed.

• Taiwan mazesoba 1 h

  Brothless ramen invented in 2008 at Menya Hanabi, in the Takabata district, out of a failed attempt at taiwan ramen: thick noodles with spicy minced pork, spring onion, garlic, chives, seaweed and a raw yolk, all to be mixed thoroughly before eating. When you reach the bottom of the bowl you ask for oimeshi, a free bowl of rice to mop up the sauce. It runs about 900-1,000 yen and chains serve it all over Japan now, but the original house is still here.

• Taiwan ramen 1 h

  Extremely spicy ramen invented in Nagoya by a Taiwanese cook and nonexistent in Taiwan; eaten in the small hours.

• The 21st-of-the-month fair at Kakuozan 2 h

  On the 21st of every month, the anniversary of Kobo Daishi's death, the slope up to Nittaiji temple fills with stalls: vegetables, pickles, plants, second-hand clothes, kushikatsu, shaved ice in summer and the odd stand selling parts from scrapped trains. This is the neighbourhood fair Nagoya still has, not a market laid on for visitors, and it runs from morning to mid-afternoon, rain or shine. Metro Higashiyama line, Kakuozan station.

• The geek and vintage side of Osu 2 h

  Beyond its shopping role, Osu concentrates second-hand manga and figure shops, old electronics and vintage clothing at prices well below Tokyo.

• The hundred-metre avenues and the postwar rebuild 1.5 h

  Japan has only three streets a full hundred metres wide, and two of them are here: Hisaya-odori and Wakamiya-odori. They were laid out across a centre flattened by the 1945 air raids, to act as firebreaks and evacuation ground, and making room for them meant moving the cemeteries of almost three hundred temples out to Heiwa-koen. The central strip is parkland today: Hisaya's was redone in 2020 with terraces and shops, while Wakamiya's, with ball courts and a skatepark under the elevated expressway, stays under construction until 2027.

• The tebasaki war: Furaibo versus Yamachan 2 h

  The two houses that both claim to have fathered Nagoya's chicken wings can be compared in a single evening. Furaibo, which started in Imaike in 1963, makes them bigger, with a sweet glaze and sesame seeds; Sekai no Yamachan, born in 1981 and recognisable by the yellow face on its sign, serves them smaller and with a pepper that genuinely bites. At both, five pieces run around 500-600 yen and dinner goes on past midnight; you eat them with your hands and ask for the plate for the bones.

• Tokoname pottery walk 3 h Tokoname · 35 min

  One of Japan's six ancient kiln towns, half an hour from Nagoya on the way to Centrair airport. The signposted route climbs through lanes whose walls are built from reused drainage pipes and shochu bottles, passes the chimney of the 1887 Noborigama kiln and comes down the street of lucky cats, presided over by a cat's head almost four metres tall. Walking it is free, the red-teapot shops close around 17:00 and several also close on Wednesdays.

• Tokugawa-en Garden 1.5 h

  A feudal lord's strolling garden with a waterfall and iris beds, right next to the Tokugawa museum.

• Toyokawa Inari and its hill of a thousand foxes 4 h Toyokawa · 60 min

  Despite the name this is not a Shinto shrine but Myogonji, a Soto Zen temple founded in 1441: one of the living examples of the Buddhist-Shinto blend the Meiji reforms tried to undo. At the back of the grounds is the Reikozuka, a gap among the rocks where more than a thousand fox statues donated by worshippers have piled up. It is about sixty minutes on the Meitetsu limited express from Nagoya to Toyokawa-Inari; the approach street lives off inarizushi.

• Toyota Kaikan and the automobile museum 3 h

  Free exhibition of robots and new models in Toyota City, and a museum with 140 original cars dating from 1890. Note: in-person factory tours remain suspended since the pandemic and only a virtual tour is available.

• Tsuruma Park 1.5 h

  The city's first public park (1909), conceived as Western and Japanese at once: on one side a monumental fountain, a rose garden and a European-style pavilion; on the other the Kochogaike pond with its Japanese garden and the Ryushin-tei teahouse. It is free and always open. In April it is one of the busiest hanami spots in Nagoya, with some 750 cherry trees lit up at night, and in June there are hydrangeas.

• Yanagibashi Market 1.5 h

  The city's fish market, which supplies the restaurants rather than the tourist, ten minutes from the station.

• Aichi Museum of Flight 2 h

  Real aircraft and the aeronautical history of a region that built a large share of Japan's 20th-century planes, at Komaki airport.

• Aichi Triennale and the prefectural museum 3 h

  One of Japan's largest contemporary art events, which every three years takes over museums and venues spread across the city.

• Brother Museum 1.5 h booking

  Brother started in Nagoya in 1908 repairing sewing machines and ended up making typewriters, knitting machines and printers. Its museum, in the Mizuho district, holds one of Japan's largest collections of sewing machines, some from the mid-19th century, and lets you try embroidery and labelling. Free entry from 10:00 to 17:00, booking in advance through a form is compulsory, and it closes Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays: this is a company museum, not a municipal one.

• Canal Resort, hot-spring water inside Nagoya 3 h

  An urban spa with Balinese décor in the Nakagawa district that really does have its own spring: it comes up at 48.8 degrees and feeds indoor and outdoor baths, along with hot-stone rooms and a restaurant. A free shuttle bus runs from Kanayama station, which makes it doable without a car. As in almost every sento in the region, visible tattoos are not allowed.

• Chita 88 temple pilgrimage 5 h

  A miniature Shikoku: 88 temples spread across the Chita peninsula, reachable by train from Nagoya and with almost no foreigners.

• Chunichi Dragons Game at Vantelin Dome 3 h booking

  The covered home stadium of this historic Central League club; attending a game lets you experience the 'oendan' up close — the coordinated cheering squads of Japanese baseball.

• Historic Arimatsu District and Shibori Dyeing 2 h

  A former post town on the Tokaido route known for shibori, a traditional tie-dyeing technique, with well-preserved merchant houses.

• Hot spring baths inside the city 2 h

  Nagoya has genuine hot spring water within the urban area, with open-air baths, which is unusual for an industrial city of this size.

• Katahara Onsen and its hydrangea valley 6 h Gamagori · 70 min

  The hot-spring resort closest to the sea on Mikawa Bay, a little over an hour by train from Nagoya: rust-coloured iron-rich water and hotels with outdoor baths looking out over the bay, several of them open to day visitors for around 1,000-1,500 yen. In June the hillside next door is covered by some fifty thousand hydrangeas and lit up at night for a couple of weeks.

• Kosho-ji Temple in Yagoto 1.5 h

  Mountain temple with a five-storey pagoda inside the city itself, with zazen sessions open to the public.

• Nagoya City Art Museum 1.5 h

  Postmodern building by Kisho Kurokawa with an unusual collection: School of Paris and 20th-century Mexican art.

• Nagoya Grampus and the women's marathon 3 h booking

  The city's football club plays in the J-League, and in March the world's largest women-only marathon is run here.

• Nippon Domannaka Matsuri 3 h only the last weekend of August

  In August, 200,000 dancers take over the city in Japan's largest yosakoi dance festival.

• Nittai-ji Temple 1 h

  A nonsectarian Buddhist temple in the Kakuozan neighbourhood that houses an authentic relic of the Buddha donated by Thailand.

• Osu Engeijo, the region's last yose 3 h

  The only traditional variety theatre left between Tokyo and Osaka: a small hall in Osu where rakugo, manzai and parlour magic are performed. It came close to disappearing in 2014, seizure of assets and all, and reopened thanks to the neighbourhood. The regular programme runs from the 1st to the 10th of each month; the rest of the time the hall is rented out to companies. Everything is in dense Japanese with no translation: without the language, you get the atmosphere and not much more.

• Osu Shopping District 1.5 h

  Lively shopping streets next to Osu Kannon Temple, blending retro and modern stores.

• Shirotori Garden 1.5 h

  The city's largest Japanese garden, with a tea house and a stream representing the course of the Kiso river, next to Atsuta Shrine.

• Shonai Ryokuchi, the Shonai river park 2.5 h

  A park built on the Shonai river's flood plain, with one of the largest lawns in the city, a cycling circuit with rental bikes, rowing boats, a rose garden and a cherry-tree avenue that fills with local families in April. Entry is free and it has its own metro stop (Tsurumai line, Shonai-Ryokuchi-koen). The Green Plaza greenhouse opens 9:00 to 16:45 and closes on Mondays and the third Wednesday of the month.

• Shopping in Meieki and the underground city 2.5 h

  Beneath the station spreads one of Japan's largest underground shopping complexes, also useful on days of rain or extreme heat.

• The four Kannon of Owari and setsubun 5 h

  Four Kannon temples (Kasadera, Arako, Ryusenji and Jimokuji) that Tokugawa Ieyasu placed around the castle to cover its inauspicious directions. Every 3 February, at setsubun, whichever one falls in that year's lucky direction draws a huge bean-throwing pilgrimage while the other three stay quiet; the rest of the year you can do all four by train and metro in one long day, free and with almost no tourists. Jimokuji is in the town of Ama, about 25 minutes away by train.

• World Cosplay Summit 3 h only late July or early August

  The world cosplay championship is held in Nagoya every August, with a parade through the centre and teams from dozens of countries.

• Hisaya-odori Christmas Market 2 h only from early December to 25 December

  In two squares of Hisaya-odori park in Sakae, with a real fir tree and a carousel. Free entry; food and rides are paid. It opens at four in the afternoon on weekdays, eleven at weekends and two on the 24th and 25th. The local TV station and newspaper run it with backing from the German consulate, and it is in its twelfth edition since 2013.

What only happens on specific dates

• The Toba fire: two two-tonne torches and an augury the second Sunday of February; if it rains it moves to the Monday
• Atsuta Matsuri 5 Jun
• Owari Tsushima Tenno Matsuri, the lantern boats the fourth weekend of July
• Nagoya Sumo Tournament at IG Arena fifteen days in July
• World Cosplay Summit late July or early August
• Nippon Domannaka Matsuri the last weekend of August
• Tsushima in autumn: sixteen floats with automata, and not the UNESCO one the first Sunday of October and the Saturday before, which can fall in September
• Setomono Matsuri, the crockery fair the second weekend of September
• Asuke: four floats and two hundred matchlocks the second Saturday and Sunday of October
• The Miya Matsuri: four floats that go into the sea, when they do two days in late October; the sources disagree on the rule
• Toyota's Koromo festival: eight floats and a storm of paper the third Sunday of October and the Saturday before
• Nagoya Matsuri and the karakuri floats one weekend in mid-October
• Osu Daido Chonin Matsuri, the street performers' festival the second weekend of October
• Hisaya-odori Christmas Market from early December to 25 December

Ready-made routes through Nagoya

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