Kobe

Hugging the coastline of Japan’s inland sea, sits the charming city of Kobe, its compact and cosmopolitan streets transmuting into trails up the Mt Rokko, the latter being home to one of the most panoramic views of Japan. This is quintessential off-the-beaten-track Japan; yet an ever-growing population of visitors come here curiously magnetised by the city’s parks, museums and central concentration of German cottages and English-style townhouses. Be sure to ask your Kobe tourist guide about these fascinating if somewhat anachronistic buildings clustered around Kitano-cho and Kyu-kyoryuchi, a testimony to the long trading prowess of the city. Don’t leave without wandering through the lantern-lit streets of Kobe’s Chinatown, sampling the curious hybrid dishes of the orient as you go, or sipping a spot of Japanese sake in one of the many breweries that pepper the Nada district of town, famously augmented with the pure mountain spring water of the hills that loom all around.