Sapporo

Hokkaido, Japan · City, Snow

A grid city laid out on the Ishikari plain, with a scrap of its original forest still standing downtown, and you can take the whole thing in from the Moiwa ropeway. You eat lamb grilled on a domed iron plate and a miso ramen sealed under a layer of lard that keeps the bowl scalding to the last mouthful; soup curry was invented here too. The city's own hot-spring town sits in a gorge of the Toyohira river.

The essentials

Getting there

Train — New Chitose Airport is well connected, subway within the city

What it is genuinely strong in

🍜 Food

Frequently asked questions about Sapporo

What to do in Sapporo: 86 activities

• Jingisukan 1.75 h must-see booking

  Sapporo's signature dish: lamb grilled on a domed iron plate with vegetables around the rim. The garden of the old brewery serves the all-you-can-eat-and-drink version.

• Jozankei Onsen 5 h must-see

  It really is inside Sapporo city, in Minami-ku: the city's own hot-spring resort, in a gorge of the Toyohira river about seventy-five minutes by bus. Many ryokan open their baths to day visitors and there are free footbaths around the village.

• Miso ramen at Sumire 1 h must-see

  The shop that defined modern miso ramen: a thick broth sealed under a layer of lard that keeps the bowl scalding to the last noodle. The original is in Nakanoshima (Nakajima-Koen on the Namboku line, then ten minutes on foot) and there is a Susukino branch open into the small hours; a miso bowl runs about 1,100 yen. Closing days are irregular, so check before crossing town.

• Mount Moiwa ropeway 2.25 h must-see

  A ropeway and mini-cable car up to 531 metres, looking out over Sapporo's whole grid and Ishikari Bay. It is the city's best night view, well ahead of the TV tower.

• Okurayama ski jump and the Olympic Museum 2.5 h must-see

  The large hill from the 1972 Games, still in World Cup use. A chairlift climbs to the start gate (1,000 yen return) and from up there you see the ramp the jumpers drop down and, behind it, the whole city. The Sapporo Olympic Museum (670 yen; 1,370 combined with the lift) has jump and bobsleigh simulators. Open year-round, but the chairlift stops running during competitions.

• Ramen Crawl at Ramen Yokocho 1.5 h must-see

  An alley of small shops specializing in miso ramen, the city's signature dish.

• Sapporo Snow Festival (Yuki Matsuri) 3 h must-see only the first half of February

  An internationally famous winter festival held in February, featuring huge snow and ice sculptures displayed in Odori Park and other venues. It takes place in early February at three sites: Odori, Susukino and Tsudome, the last of them family-oriented and with slides. Accommodation has to be booked six to nine months in advance.

• Akarenga, the former prefectural government office 1.25 h booking

  It reopened on July 25, 2025 after six years of seismic retrofitting, with new exhibitions on the history of Hokkaido and Ainu culture. For the first time the octagonal tower can be climbed, in half-hour slots for seven people: booking is advisable.

• Deep snow at Sapporo Kokusai 7 h Jozankei (Minami-ku, Sapporo) · 90 min only 20 Nov - 6 May

  The snowiest ski area within the city, past Jozankei: seven runs and four lifts with accumulations comparable to Niseko's and none of its queues. A day pass is about 6,000 yen, or 8,800 including the return bus from Sapporo station's terminal (90 minutes; book a seat). Season runs from late November to early May.

• Dinner at the Sapporo Beer Garden 2 h booking

  In the red-brick halls of the old malt house beside the beer museum: Kessel Hall seats you under a copper brewing kettle from 1912. All-you-can-eat jingisukan with free-flow drinks for 100 minutes runs 4,600-5,300 yen depending on the hall. Book online — it fills up in summer — and walk ten minutes from Higashi-Kuyakusho-mae station.

• Ginkgo avenue at Hokkaido University 1.75 h

  Three hundred and eighty metres of ginkgo that turn gold in late October and early November, with a free weekend of night illumination. It costs nothing and is walked alongside the historic campus and the poplar avenue.

• Hoheikan, the Emperor Meiji's hotel 1.5 h

  An 1880 wooden hotel built by the colonisation office to house official visitors: Emperor Meiji slept here in 1881 and his suite has been restored. It is an Important Cultural Property, has stood in Nakajima Park since 1958, and costs 350 yen to visit, 9:00 to 17:00 with last entry at 16:30, closed the second Tuesday of each month. Cafe Harunire operates inside, among six restored fireplaces.

• Hokkaido conveyor-belt sushi 1.5 h

  In Hokkaido, conveyor-belt sushi plays in a different league: Toriton and Nemuro Hanamaru work fish from the island's own ports at 150-600 yen a piece. Hanamaru has a branch on the 6th floor of Stellar Place above Sapporo station, where a 40-60 minute wait at lunchtime is normal; you take a ticket from a machine and stand.

• Hokkaido Jingu Festival (Sapporo Matsuri) 3 h only 14-16 Jun

  June 14 to 16, fixed dates. On the 16th four mikoshi and eight floats leave the shrine and cross the centre for hours accompanied by musicians in period dress; on the preceding days Nakajima Park fills with hundreds of food stalls and fairground booths, which is where the city actually is. Free apart from what you eat.

• Hokkaido University Botanic Garden 1.5 h

  Founded in 1886, it preserves the last remnant of the original forest that covered the Ishikari plain, in the middle of the city ten minutes from the station. Admission 420 yen from late April to September (9:00-16:30), closed Mondays. Warning: from November to late April only the greenhouse opens, for 120 yen. Inside there is a small Ainu culture museum and the Miyabe memorial hall.

• Jingisukan at Daruma, Susukino 1.5 h

  Open since 1954, this is counter-style jingisukan: twelve stools around a charcoal grill, hand-cut raw lamb and a shared house dipping sauce. Several branches sit within a few metres of each other on Minami 5-jo Nishi 4, open 17:00 to 3:00. Your clothes will come out smelling of lamb — that is not an exaggeration, so wear something washable.

• Nijo Market 1.5 h

  Fresh seafood and just-opened sea urchin, perfect for breakfast or lunch.

• Queueing at Menya Saimi 1.5 h

  Many Sapporo locals call this the best miso ramen in the city, and it has held a Michelin Bib Gourmand for years. It sits in Misono at the southern end of the Toho subway line (Misono station, then an eight-minute walk), and the queue forms before the 11:00 opening: budget forty minutes on a weekday and more at weekends. Closed Mondays plus the first and second Tuesday of each month.

• Sapporo Autumn Fest 2.5 h only mid-September to early October

  From mid-September to early October, Odori Park becomes a food market laid out in themed blocks with producers from across the prefecture. It is the best way to eat Hokkaido in one afternoon.

• Sapporo Pirka Kotan, Ainu culture centre 2.5 h booking

  Some three hundred pieces of Ainu craftwork that can be handled, reconstructed cise houses and workshops in embroidery and mukkuri, run with the participation of the Ainu community. The context is worth knowing: the Ainu were colonised from the 19th century on, the 1899 law forced their assimilation and effectively banned their language, and Japan only recognised them legally as an indigenous people in 2019. Do not photograph ceremonies without permission, and do not treat ritual clothing as costume.

• Skiing at Sapporo Teine 7 h

  Within the city itself, forty minutes from the centre. It keeps two runs from the 1972 Olympic Games and the Olympic torch as a monument; the season runs from late November to early May.

• Soup curry 1 h

  It was born here between the 1970s and the 1990s: a spiced broth with chicken leg and whole Hokkaido vegetables, in which you choose the heat level and the amount of rice.

• Soup curry at Garaku 1.5 h

  The most famous basement in the genre, one minute from Odori station (Minami 2-jo Nishi 2). Chicken leg with vegetables is about 1,480 yen, and you pick a heat level from 1 to 40 plus your rice portion. When there is a queue they hand out numbered tickets and tell you when to come back, so it pays to put your name down and go for a walk. Open 11:30-15:30 and 17:00-21:00, with irregular closing days.

• Tadao Ando's Hill of the Buddha 2 h

  In 2015 Ando buried an existing 13.5-metre stone Buddha under an artificial hill planted with 150,000 lavender bushes: from outside only the head shows, and you reach it through a concrete tunnel that opens onto a ring of sky. Admission 1,000 yen; 9:00-16:00 April to October, 10:00-15:00 the rest of the year. It is a working cemetery — keep quiet and stay out of the lavender. Bus from Makomanai station.

• The Nippon-Ham Fighters at ES CON FIELD 5 h booking

  Warning: the team no longer plays at the Sapporo Dome. It moved in 2023 to ES CON FIELD, in Kitahiroshima, a different municipality some thirty kilometres away. The stadium has a 166-metre retractable roof, an onsen with a sauna looking onto the field, and Japan's first hotel with rooms overlooking the playing surface.

• The Sapporo Summer Festival beer garden 3 h only 23 Jul - 18 Aug

  From 23 July to 18 August, seven blocks of Odori Park (5-chome to 11-chome) become Japan's largest beer garden, with a zone per brewery: Sapporo, Asahi, Kirin, Suntory and a world-beers section. A half-litre runs about 800 yen, tables are shared and there is no booking. The festival also takes in the Bon Odori dances and fireworks over the Toyohira river.

• Walking Jozankei: footbaths, kappa and the gorge 3 h Jozankei (Minami-ku, Sapporo) · 70 min

  No overnight stay, no bathhouse fee needed: the village has free footbaths, a hot-spring hand bath, more than twenty kappa statues scattered through the streets, and the Futami suspension bridge over the Toyohira river. It is still inside Sapporo city limits but about seventy minutes by bus from the station; in mid-October the gorge turns red and the buses run full.

• Walking the Hokkaido University campus 2 h

  A kilometre and a half of open campus starting ten minutes on foot from Sapporo station: the 1877 model barn, an Important Cultural Property and the university's oldest surviving building, the 1909 Furukawa Memorial Hall, the elm grove and Ono pond. This is working academic ground with students heading to class: you walk through, you do not wander into lecture rooms. Free and unrestricted.

• White Illumination and the Munich market 2 h only 20 Nov - 14 Mar

  Japan's oldest winter illumination (running since 1981) lights Odori, the station avenue and Sosei Square from 20 November to mid-March. On top of that, from 20 November to 25 December Odori hosts the Munich Christmas Market, the oldest in the country: it began in 2002 for the thirtieth anniversary of the twinning between the two cities. Mulled wine, sausage and German crafts. All outdoors and often below freezing: bring gloves.

• Yosakoi Soran Matsuri 4 h only five days in early June

  Born in 1992 by crossing Kochi's yosakoi with the Soran Bushi fishing song, it now fields close to three hundred teams and 25,000 dancers across some twenty-five stages around the city over five days in early June. Watching is free almost everywhere; only the final Odori parade has paid seating. Loud, competitive and not remotely solemn.

• A concert at Kitara 2.5 h booking

  A 1997 symphony hall in Nakajima Park with vineyard-style seating and a 4,976-pipe organ: home of the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra. Beyond the subscription concerts there are free or near-free lunchtime organ recitals several times a month. Tickets go online weeks in advance and some concerts start around 2,000 yen.

• A neighbourhood sento 1.5 h

  Many of Sapporo's public baths pump genuine hot-spring water, so for the sento rate the prefecture fixes — around 500 yen — you get an onsen soak without leaving the district. You wash sitting down before entering the water, and soap is not always included: it is sold at reception for a hundred yen. Warning: most refuse entry with visible tattoos, and the few that allow them say so at the door.

• All-night urban spa in Susukino 2 h

  Susukino has several 24-hour bathing complexes — Sky Resort Spa Nikoh Refre and Manyo no Yu are the ones people actually use — with hot-spring baths, sauna and reclining rooms where you can sleep for 3,000-4,500 yen. It is the fallback for anyone who misses the last subway, which in Sapporo goes around midnight. Tattoos are barred at almost all of them.

• Bar Yamazaki, classic cocktails 1.5 h

  Open since 1955, this is the bar that taught Sapporo to make cocktails. Its own creation, the 'Sapporo' (apricot, vodka and mint-steeped cherry), won a prize at the 1981 international competition in Geneva. It is on the fourth floor of the Katsumi building at Minami 3-jo Nishi 3, two minutes from Susukino station. Expect a table charge of around 700 yen on top of the drinks.

• Climbing Mount Maruyama 2 h

  225 metres of old-growth forest directly behind Hokkaido Jingu shrine: a forty-minute climb along a path lined with 88 stone statues, and a view over the city centre from the top. It is free and heavily used by locals at dawn. Serious warning: brown bears live on the massif and the city closes the trail for days at a time after each sighting — check the municipal notice and carry a bell.

• Curb wholesale market 1.5 h

  The less touristy alternative to Nijo market, where locals have breakfast: hairy crab and sea urchin depending on the season.

• Dinner in the Maruyama neighbourhood 2.5 h booking

  Where Sapporo people eat when they want to eat well and skip Susukino: the streets radiating from Maruyama-Koen station are full of eight- and ten-seat counters, small French places and the odd Michelin star. Almost everything runs on reservations only, and many will not take a booking from someone who cannot phone in Japanese — the practical move is to have your hotel call.

• F Village on a non-game day: hot spring over the outfield 4 h Kitahiroshima · 40 min

  On days with no game the 32-hectare Es Con Field complex is free to enter: its own brewery, the Nanatsuboshi Yokocho restaurant lane, a farm and an adventure park. The Tower Eleven block holds the world's first hot spring from which you can watch a baseball game through glass, plus hotel rooms overlooking the field. Take the JR Chitose line to Kitahiroshima (about 20 minutes from Sapporo) and a 5-minute shuttle.

• Going out in Susukino without getting fleeced 3 h

  Susukino has a genuine street-tout problem (kyakuhiki): the city banned them by ordinance in July 2022 with fines up to 50,000 yen, and even so 2024 saw more than 11,700 verbal warnings issued and exactly one fine. The rule is simple: never walk into a place because someone on the street led you there. Serious bars do not tout — you look up the name, take the lift and read the price list posted at the door.

• Hoheikyo Onsen and the dam 3.5 h

  At the far end of the Jozankei valley, an onsen known for its large open-air bath and, oddly, for its Indian curry. Combine it with the walk up to the Hoheikyo dam.

• Hokkaido crab, without the sales pitch 2 h booking

  Three different crabs, and it helps to know which you are ordering: kegani (hairy crab, the sweetest, best in spring), zuwai, and taraba, which is not a true crab at all and is almost always frozen in from Russia or Alaska. In the Susukino crab restaurants a full course runs 8,000-15,000 yen a head and needs booking; be sceptical of cheap taraba displayed in tourist windows.

• Hokkaido Jingu Shrine 1.5 h

  Hokkaido's main Shinto shrine, set within the wooded Maruyama Park, popular in spring for its cherry blossoms.

• Hokkaido Museum 2 h

  The prefecture's general museum, next to the Historical Village: it covers everything from prehistory to Meiji colonisation and includes an Ainu section.

• Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art 1.5 h

  A collection strong in the School of Paris and in Hokkaido artists, five minutes on foot from the subway. Closed on Mondays.

• Hokkaido University Museum 1.5 h

  Free, 10:00 to 17:00, closed Mondays, housed in the former medical faculty building of 1929. It shows the university's scientific collections — Hokkaido fossils, Taro the Antarctic expedition dog, research on the peoples of the north — and has a cafe on the ground floor. The most content per yen of any museum in the city.

• Ice cream at the Snow Brand Parlour 1 h

  A parlour opened in 1961 by the Yukijirushi dairy at Kita 2-jo Nishi 3, five minutes from the station, where Hokkaido-style vanilla ice cream took hold. The Snow Royal version was developed in the 1960s for the Imperial Household and carries roughly twice the butterfat of ordinary ice cream; a cup runs over a thousand yen, a fruit parfait around seven hundred. The clientele is local families and older regulars, not a tourist queue.

• Ishikari nabe 1.5 h

  A hotpot of salmon, miso, cabbage and potato originating on the Ishikari river. It is a winter dish, not a summer one.

• Iwato Kannon-do in Jozankei 0.75 h

  A 120-metre cave with thirty-three Kannon statues, dug by the labourers who opened the road to Jozankei. You walk it in the dark with a candle.

• Jozankei Nature Village 14 h booking

  Accommodation in tipis and cabins with outdoor workshops in the Jozankei valley, from May to October. It pairs well with the valley's onsen outside peak hours.

• Lilac Festival 2 h only 20-31 May

  The lilac is Sapporo's symbol tree, and in late May the four hundred of them in Odori Park bloom: ten days of open-air concerts, food stalls and a Hokkaido wine garden with glasses at 400-600 yen. It overlaps with the Sapporo Ramen Show in the same park. This is the moment the city finally comes outdoors after winter.

• Makomanai Park, the other 1972 venue 2 h

  The 1972 opening ceremony was held here, in an open-air stadium that now becomes a skating rink in winter, next to the covered ice arena. The park itself is 85 hectares of woodland and meadow at the end of the Namboku line (Makomanai station), heavily used by families at weekends and almost untouched by tourism.

• Nakajima's Japanese garden and the Hassoan teahouse 1 h only 29 Apr - 3 Nov

  Behind the Hoheikan lies a stroll garden with a pond and waterfall that hardly anyone crosses over to see, and within it Hassoan, a seventeenth-century teahouse attributed to tea master Kobori Enshu and designated an Important Cultural Property in 1950 — the northernmost in Japan. Free, 9:00 to 17:00, and open only from late April to early November; the rest of the year it is closed for snow.

• Night out in the Susukino district 3 h

  Northern Japan's largest neon entertainment district, with hundreds of bars, izakayas, and ramen shops open until the early hours.

• Odori Park 1 h

  Home to the famous Snow Festival in winter, and the city's green spine the rest of the year.

• Okushiba Shoten and its prawn-based curry 1.5 h

  The other school of Sapporo soup curry: a broth built on prawn heads, far sweeter and more maritime than the chicken version. The Kita 1-jo Nishi shop is a ten-minute walk from Odori and tends to run out of broth by mid-afternoon, so the safe hour is before 13:00.

• Ramen Shingen, the heaviest miso in town 1.5 h

  The extreme end of the genre: a very salty, very fatty miso broth, thick curly noodles and raw chopped onion on top. The main shop is at Nango-13-chome on the Tozai line and a Susukino branch stays open until 2:00. Honest warning: this is a heavy, blunt bowl with no subtlety at all — if you want finesse, go to Saimi.

• Reading the Sapporo grid 2 h

  Sapporo was laid out from scratch in 1869 on a north-aligned grid, with Odori avenue as a firebreak between the government quarter and the commercial one. Addresses are coordinates: Minami 3-jo Nishi 4 is three blocks south and four blocks west of the zero point beside the Clock Tower. Once that clicks the city changes — you stop using the map. Best seen from a viewpoint, and walkable in a couple of hours.

• Rokkatei and Kitakaro, the sweets of Hokkaido 1 h

  Hokkaido's two great confectioners have flagship stores five minutes from Odori and two blocks apart. Since 2016 Kitakaro has occupied Hokkaido's first public library, a 1926 building remodelled by Tadao Ando, at Kita 1-jo Nishi 5 (shop 10:00-18:00, cafe 11:00-16:00). Rokkatei is at Kita 4-jo Nishi 6 and serves free tea in the upstairs salon alongside its marusei butter sand, the butter biscuit half the island gives as a gift.

• Sapporo Art Park and its open-air sculpture museum 2.75 h

  Forty hectares of forest with open-air sculpture, craft workshops and a museum. The sculpture park closes partially once the snow arrives.

• Sapporo Beer Museum 1.5 h

  The history of Japan's first brewery, with a tasting included.

• Sapporo Classic and the city's craft beer 2 h

  Sapporo Classic is all-malt and sold only in Hokkaido: you cannot buy it elsewhere in Japan, and it is what people here drink day to day. Beyond the big brand, the city has small taprooms such as Moon Soul Brewing and the beer museum's own brewery beers; plenty of Tanukikoji bars pour it on draught for 600-700 yen.

• Sapporo loop streetcar 1 h

  The streetcar makes a loop from Susukino to the foot of Moiwa; chaining it with the ropeway is the classic local route.

• Suage+ and soup curry with flame-grilled vegetables 1.5 h

  A version with its own signature: the Hokkaido vegetables arrive on skewers charred over fire rather than simmered, and the chicken comes from Chitose. It is in the heart of Susukino (Minami 4-jo Nishi 5) and serves until 22:30, which makes it a workable dinner after a long afternoon. A vegetarian version exists on request, but the base broth is not always meat-free — ask.

• Takino Suzuran Park 4 h

  The only state-run national park in Hokkaido, in Minami-ku, with waterfalls and a huge play area: flower fields from May to October, and cross-country skiing and sledding in winter.

• The Chi-Ka-Ho underground concourse 1 h

  520 metres of pedestrian gallery under Ekimae-dori linking Sapporo station to Odori without setting foot outside, open since 2011 and free. In January, with the pavement iced over, it is the sensible way to cross the centre; along it are producers' stalls, exhibitions and benches. It also connects to the Tanukikoji and Susukino basements: nearly two kilometres under cover.

• The late-night parfait 1 h

  A very Sapporo habit: closing the night with an iced parfait instead of a ramen, at the late-opening parfait shops of Susukino.

• Toyohira River Salmon Museum 1.5 h

  Inside Makomanai Park, free, open 9:15 to 16:45 and closed Mondays. It tells the story of the programme that brought salmon back to the Toyohira after the city wiped them out, and in autumn you can watch artificial fertilisation being done live. An outdoor pond lets you feed salmonids including the ito, Hokkaido's giant and now endangered taimen.

• A Consadole Sapporo match at Sapporo Dome 2 h booking

  Sapporo Dome, with its unusual sliding turf, is home to the Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo football club (J1 League); it also offers guided tours of its facilities on non-match days. Sapporo Dome is still Consadole's home ground, but it is worth checking which division the club is playing in for the season you are looking at. The Nippon-Ham Fighters no longer play here: they moved in 2023 to ES CON FIELD, in Kitahiroshima.

• Clock Tower 0.6 h

  The former drill hall of the Sapporo Agricultural College, from 1878, with a Boston clock from 1881. An honest warning: it is a small building boxed in between office towers and it disappoints many people, though the museum inside explains the colonisation of Hokkaido well.

• Golden Kamuy locations 2 h

  The manga, set in the Hokkaido of 1907 and with an Ainu lead character, uses Sapporo and the Historical Village as settings, and there are official tourist maps of its locations.

• Historical Village of Hokkaido (Kaitaku no Mura) 2.5 h

  An open-air museum with more than 50 original Meiji- and Taisho-era buildings relocated here to showcase the life of Hokkaido's early settlers.

• Hitsujigaoka Observation Hill 2 h

  The sheep hill, with the Clark statue pointing at the horizon and his 'Boys, be ambitious' — the postcard in every brochure. Admission 1,000 yen, open 365 days (9:00-18:00 June to September, 9:00-17:00 otherwise), bus from Fukuzumi station. Honest warning: the foreground is the Sapporo Dome and a car park; the view is far better from Mount Moiwa.

• Jazz at the bar in Susukino 2 h

  Sapporo keeps a small but steady scene of jazz kissa and live rooms tucked into Susukino's office buildings: Bossa (running since 1975), Jamaica and D-Bop programme sets most nights. Entry is usually a music charge of 2,000-3,000 yen including one drink, and sets start late, around 20:00 or 21:00.

• Levanga Hokkaido 2.5 h booking

  The city's basketball team, founded by Takehiko Orimo, plays from October to May in an eight-thousand-seat arena and spreads some games across other cities in Hokkaido.

• Maruyama Zoo 2.5 h

  A municipal zoo next to Maruyama Park and Shrine, home to polar bears, penguins, and a wide variety of species.

• Miyanomori ski jump 1.5 h

  The normal hill from 1972, where Yukio Kasaya won Japan's first Winter Olympic gold, sitting in a residential district ten minutes by bus from Maruyama. Walking up to the base is free, and it still hosts the women's World Cup jumping event in January. Next door is the Miyanomori Art Museum, housed in a converted private home.

• Moerenuma Park 2 h

  A park designed entirely by the sculptor Isamu Noguchi, featuring monumental geometric forms. In winter it also works as a snow park, with sledging and cross-country skiing: it is not only a summer outing.

• Norbesa ferris wheel over Susukino 0.6 h

  A ferris wheel on the roof of a commercial building in the middle of Susukino, open late, giving another perspective on the district.

• Opera and ballet at the hitaru theatre 3 h booking

  Opened in 2018 on Sosei Square beside Odori: 2,302 seats, an orchestra pit and a full fly tower, making it one of the few theatres in Japan able to stage real opera. It opened with Aida and programmes opera, ballet, musicals and the Sapporo Symphony's subscription series. Tickets online; the opera nights sell out months ahead.

• Pop culture shops in Sapporo 1.5 h

  There is a Pokemon Center, Animate and arcades scattered between Tanukikoji and the station, but no otaku district: if this is a priority for the trip, the time is better spent in Honshu.

• Sapporo Bankei 4 h

  The ski area closest to the centre, half an hour by bus: small, with night skiing and a snow park. Good for beginners and children, not for experts.

• Sapporo Factory and the station complexes 2 h

  Sapporo Factory is Japan's first beer factory converted into a shopping centre with a glazed atrium. A good plan for rain or cold.

• Sapporo's roasting cafes 1.5 h

  Sapporo has an in-house coffee-roasting culture older and more serious than you would expect from a snow city. Morihico opened in 1996 in a wooden house at Minami 3-jo Nishi 26 (Maruyama-Koen subway) and still roasts on site; Miyakoshiya and Saera are the other two veterans. A filter coffee costs 600-800 yen and nobody hurries you out.

• Shiroi Koibito Chocolate Park 1.5 h

  A factory-museum dedicated to Hokkaido's famous chocolate-and-cookie souvenir sweet.

• Shopping at Tanukikoji Arcade 1.5 h

  A covered shopping arcade nearly a kilometre long, the oldest in Sapporo, lined with shops and restaurants.

• TV Tower observation deck 0.75 h

  A view straight down the axis of Odori Park: less spectacular than Moiwa, but central and useful in bad weather.

What only happens on specific dates

• Deep snow at Sapporo Kokusai 20 Nov - 6 May
• White Illumination and the Munich market 20 Nov - 14 Mar
• Sapporo Snow Festival (Yuki Matsuri) the first half of February
• Nakajima's Japanese garden and the Hassoan teahouse 29 Apr - 3 Nov
• Lilac Festival 20-31 May
• Hokkaido Jingu Festival (Sapporo Matsuri) 14-16 Jun
• Yosakoi Soran Matsuri five days in early June
• The Sapporo Summer Festival beer garden 23 Jul - 18 Aug
• Sapporo Autumn Fest mid-September to early October

Ready-made routes through Sapporo

Chains well with

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