Best in a Day or Two

Best in a Day or Two

A stroll around the Kitano area punctuated by a café stop and a great dinner is time well spent. You can see Kobe's main sights in a one-day excursion from Osaka or Kyoto, including a stop on your way down the San-yo Coast. With a second day in Kobe you can make a side trip to Rokko-san and Arima Onsen.

If You Have 1 Day

A good place to start your visit to Kobe is the Kobe City Museum,where you can take in the history of the town, including memorabilia from the heyday of the old foreign settlement. To get to the museum, walk south down Flower Road from San-no-miya Station, past the Flower Clock and City Hall, to Higashi-Yuenchi Koen. Walk through the park to the Kobe Minato post office, across the street on the west side. Walk east on the road in front of the post office toward the Oriental Hotel. Turn left at the corner in front of the hotel; the museum is in the old Bank of Tokyo building, at the end of the block.

From here, continue on toward the water and stop into Meriken Park and the Kobe Maritime Museum,with its exhibits of ships and all things nautical. Return to San-no-miya Station, browsing through Nankin-machi (Chinatown) and the Moto-machi and San-no-miya shopping arcades if time permits. Once back at San-no-miya Station, begin your tour of the northern district by crossing the street that runs along the tracks and turning left at the first main intersection to see the classic outline of the orange torii at Ikuta Jinja. The road that runs up the right side of the shrine leads up the slope to Nakayamate-dori. Cross the avenue and continue up the slope. Turn right at the corner of Yamamoto-dori, a road lined with high-fashion boutiques and restaurants. Turn left at Kitano-zaka, which leads to Kitano-cho, an area where Western traders and businessmen have lived since the late 19th century. Many of the older ijinkan have been turned into museums. Continue up the slope from Nakayamate-dori. At the first intersection after Yamamoto-dori (nicknamed Ijinkan-dori), just past Rin's Gallery, which is filled with boutiques of Japan's top designers, turn right and walk east to visit the 1907 Eikoku-kan.

Three ijinkan in the Kitano-ku area are publicly owned. Rhein-no-Yakata,opposite Eikoku-kan, has a German-style coffee shop inside. Near Kitano Tenman Jinja at the top of the hill is the Kazami-dori-no-Yakata,made famous on a national TV series some years ago. Continue back down the slope via Kitano-zaka toward San-no-miya Station and turn right on Yamamoto-dori. One ijinkan house not to miss is the 1869 Choueke Yashiki,full of interesting turn-of-the-20th-century items. Return to San-no-miya Station and walk to the Portliner platform, and take the automated train to the consumer diversions on Port Island (Poto Airando).

If You Have 2 Days

If you have a second day in Kobe, take a trip to the city's eastern districts. From JR San-no-miya, take a local train one stop to JR Nada Station. From here walk south for 10 minutes until you come to the HAT (Happy Active Town) district. The two main sights in HAT are the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Memorial and the nearby Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art. With an early start, you'd be able to see them both in the morning, and then enjoy a light lunch at the art museum's very good café. After lunch, head back to JR San-no-miya Station and change to the adjoining Hankyu San-no-miya Station. Here, catch a local train heading east to Hankyu Rokko Station. The journey over Rokko-san and descent into the resort town of Arima Onsen offers wonderful views. After a refreshing soak in the town's famous hot baths, the return trip to San-no-miya should see you back in the center of town just in time for a hearty dinner of Kobe beef.