Hiroshima Highlights Tour

Hiroshima Private Tour: One Day Highlights

Hiroshima's atomic history and Miyajima's floating torii in one private day, walked at a pace that lets the place, and the silence, land.

Overview

Hiroshima needs a quiet guide and a full day. The morning belongs to the Peace Memorial Park and the Atomic Bomb Dome, one of the few structures that stood after August 6th, 1945, and the museum whose exhibits leave most visitors in silence. Your guide offers history and context where you want it, and steps back where you do not.

After lunch the day opens out. A tram and a short ferry carry you across to Miyajima, the small sacred island off Hiroshima Bay where the deer roam freely and the vermillion torii of Itsukushima Shrine rises out of the water at high tide. You walk the boardwalks of the shrine, stop at Daiganji Temple, and finish along the old Omotesando shopping street with its momiji manju bakeries and oyster stalls before the ferry back.

The route is planned end to end as a barrier-free path, from the tram Hiroshima uses to the accessible ferry to the shrine boardwalks, so travellers in wheelchairs and those pushing strollers move through the day on the same terms as everyone else. The tour runs on public transport by design; a private car can be arranged for an extra fee if you prefer.

Details

❖ Hotel Pick-up

15 min

Your guide meets you in the hotel lobby at 9:00 and takes you by accessible public transport to the first stop. The route is planned end to end as a barrier-free path.

❖ Atomic Bomb Dome

25 min

Once the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, the dome stood almost directly under the hypocentre of the blast on August 6th, 1945, and everyone inside was killed instantly. The shell was left standing when the city was rebuilt, as a reminder and as a wish for peace, and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. Your guide offers history and explanations, and gives you the space to reflect.

❖ Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

35 min

Next to the Dome, the Peace Memorial Park was a busy commercial downtown before the war. Today it is a quiet green space dedicated to the memory of those lost and to the hope of peace: a cenotaph, the Children's Peace Monument, and a wide lawn that opens onto the river. Your guide walks the park at your pace, offering history when you wish.

❖ Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

60 min

A sober hour. The exhibits carry the belongings of victims, photographs of the devastation, and testimony from survivors. Your guide steps back here so you can move through the rooms at your own pace and on your own terms.

❖ Lunch

50 min

A break for lunch near the park. A chance to decompress and, if you wish, to try Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki (layered rather than mixed, with noodles and oyster season in winter) at a local restaurant the guide knows.

❖ Green Mover Tram to Miyajimaguchi

60 min

The guide takes you on the wheelchair-friendly Green Mover tram along Hiroden Line #2, through Hiroshima's suburbs to the ferry terminal at Miyajimaguchi on the coast.

❖ Ferry to Miyajima

10 min

A short ferry across the strait. On the crossing the floating torii gate appears off the starboard side, the first view of Miyajima you get.

❖ Itsukushima Shrine and the Red Torii Gate

50 min

The symbol of Miyajima. The shrine, built partly on stilts over the water, is made up of a prayer hall, a main hall, and a noh theatre stage connected by boardwalks that follow an accessible route. At high tide the torii appears to float; at low tide you can walk out to its base. Roaming deer wander through the grounds.

❖ Miyajima Daiganji Temple

20 min

A small Shingon temple dedicated to Benzaiten, the deity of eloquence, music, wisdom and wealth, and one of the three great Benzaiten temples in Japan. A quiet stop next to Itsukushima Shrine.

❖ Omotesando Shopping Street

30 min

Miyajima's old shopping lane, lined with bakeries of momiji manju (maple-leaf-shaped sponge cakes filled with red bean or custard), oyster stalls, and small souvenir shops. A last browse at your own pace before the return ferry.

❖ Return to Hotel

65 min

Ferry and tram back to Hiroshima, with a final walk to your hotel. The tour ends between 16:30 and 17:00.

OPTIONS

Notes

The tour is planned as a barrier-free route using accessible public transport. Travellers using a wheelchair are welcome, and so are groups without a wheelchair user.
A private car can be arranged instead of public transport for an extra fee. Please let us know when booking.
The tour timings can be adjusted on request, subject to guide availability.
At high tide the floating torii gate appears to rise from the sea; at low tide you can walk out to its base. Both are worth seeing.
If you wish to extend the tour beyond the standard duration, an additional fee of ¥6,000 per hour applies (¥8,000 per hour during peak seasons March, April, October, and December 30 to January 3). Please request extension at the time of booking or with your guide on the day.