2 days in Kanazawa, Japan's Little Kyoto

Kanazawa is a port city on the cost of Sea of Japan, in Ishikawa Prefecture. It is often called the "Little Kyoto" of Japan, due to its well-preseved historical areas and traditional culture. Tourists may combine the trip to Kanazawa with Takayama and Shirakawa-go, also nearby and historic.

I visited Kanazawa as part of my 3-week trip in February 2023 just when I entered on my working holiday visa, where I visited Okinawa, Kyuushu, Kanazawa and Nagano, before finishing in Tokyo. In this post I will focus on my 2 days in Kanazawa.

As I was travelling from Fukuoka, in Kyuushu, we took the shinkansen to arrive here, changing in Kyoto. If you are travelling from Tokyo, you can take the Hokuriku shinkansen taking about 2.5-3 hours (about 14.000 yen one way if you do not have a JR Pass), or a night bus.

Day 1: Kenroku-en gardens and historic district of Kanazawa

We arrived quite late the previous night to the hotel where we would stay for 3 nights: Henna Hotel Kanazawa. "Henna" means "weird" in Japanese, and it for sure was. We were greeted by two dinasour robots at the reception, who helped us check-in using their tablets. P.S. If you are in Tokyo, you should visit Henna Cafe around Shibuya where an industrial robot prepares coffee. There are also more Henna hotels in Tokyo. That night we had dinner at Vecchio Albero, probably the best italian I have tried in Japan!

The next day we woke up early to visit Kanazawa Castle Park and Kenroku-en gardens, that are next to each other, and only 12 minutes walking from our hotel. To enter the castle park we first crossed Oyama Shrine.

Kenroku-en is considered to be one of the Three Great Gardens of Japan.

We spent about 3 hours in total visiting these two sites, including having some matcha tea and udon.

We then walked north for about 15 minutes and crossed the river to Kazemachi Chaya and Higashi Chaya districts, traditional historic neighborhoods with tea wooden tea houses. While crowded, it was much easier to walk around than Kyoto.

On the way back to the center we stopped at Omicho fish market, near these districts, for some "chirashi", rice bowls with raw seafood.

Day 2: Ninja and samurai residences

I had previously called to book a visit at Myouruji Ninja Temple, as they only have several tours per day and may sell out. It is about 20 minutes walk south from city center, crossing a river and costs 1000 yen per adult.

It is a 17th-century temple that was originally built as a secret military outpost for the ruling Maeda clan. While from the outside it looks like an ordinary temple, the tour showed us a labyrinth of hidden rooms, trap doors, and concealed passages, even a room where they committed "seppuku" (honorable suicide).

Near this temple we found another historic district, the Nishi Chaya District, similar to the ones of the previous day but a bit less touristy.

Returning to the city center we went to Nomura-ke samurai residence (550 yen access) - like this we could contrast the ninja and samurai house! The house has a garden with a pond and red koi fish, a tea house and a museum showing Nomura family's samurai swords, armour and so on. The samurai house is located at Nagamachi district, another area with lots of wooden houses.

In the evening we had a brief look at Ishiura Shrine and the Museum of Contemporary Art. While the latter had some free open-air exhibitions, most of them required a fee so we did not go inside.

We had dinner at Itaru, a tasy izakaya specialising in seafood.