Tokyo Travel Guide

A 300-year-old tidal garden in the middle of Tokyo's skyscraper district — the only garden in the city with saltwater ponds replenished by Tokyo Bay. Originally the shogunate's private duck-hunting grounds, it now offers extraordinary views of Shiodome towers reflected in ancient lotus ponds, with a teahouse on an island reached by wooden bridges.

Tokyo's most French neighbourhood with the most Japanese soul — a hillside former geisha district where ryotei (high-end kaiseki restaurants) hide behind unmarked wooden gates in cobblestone alleys. French bistros, Italian delis, and a French lycée coexist with ancient shrines and the last functioning geisha houses in central Tokyo.

An old shopping arcade town that gentrified into Tokyo's most eclectic neighbourhood — vintage shops, curry restaurants, and tiny jazz bars coexist with a 100-year-old covered shotengai. The Awa-Odori festival in late August fills the streets with over 10,000 dancers and a million spectators — the largest summer street festival in Tokyo.

Tokyo's alternative to Kyoto's Fushimi Inari — a serene 1,900-year-old shrine with a tunnel of 200 vermilion torii gates winding through a wooded hillside in Bunkyo. In April, the azalea garden (3,000 plants across 100 varieties) turns the shrine grounds into a labyrinth of pink and red. Usually crowd-free on weekdays.

The Tokugawa shogunate's family temple sits directly beneath Tokyo Tower — a juxtaposition of steel modernity and 400-year-old Edo grandeur. Zojo-ji was the mortuary temple for six Tokugawa shoguns, and their mausoleum gates (Sankeiden) are some of the finest surviving Edo-period architecture in Tokyo.

Tokyo's indie culture neighbourhood — a maze of narrow lanes packed with vintage clothing shops, vinyl record stores, live music venues, and tiny theatre spaces. The area resisted a planned expressway through its heart and preserved its human-scale streetscape. Shimokitazawa is where Tokyo's creative class lives, plays, and performs.

Tokyo's only valley — a forested ravine running 1km through the middle of suburban Setagaya Ward, completely invisible from the surrounding streets until you descend the stone steps. A stream runs beneath a canopy of zelkova trees, passing the Fudo-do temple with its waterfall used for ascetic purification. Entirely free and usually quiet.

The working wholesale market may have moved to Toyosu, but Tsukiji's outer market — 400 shops and restaurants in a covered arcade — remains the finest place in the world to eat fresh seafood at breakfast. The tamagoyaki (rolled omelette) shops alone are worth the trip, and the uni (sea urchin) and tuna sashimi are served within hours of landing.

Tokyo's best-preserved shitamachi (old town) neighbourhood — a gentle slope of 70 independent shops, tofu makers, and cat-filled alleyways that escaped wartime bombing and urban redevelopment. Yanaka Cemetery is one of Tokyo's most atmospheric cherry blossom spots, and the lanes connecting it to the shopping street are lined with century-old wooden machiya.

Tokyo's most beloved park combines with the forested shrine of Emperor Meiji — a 700,000-square-metre urban forest created by planting 120,000 trees from across Japan in 1920. The combination of cherry-blossom picnics, festival markets, and the 100-year-old cedar avenue to the shrine gate makes this Tokyo's finest outdoor half-day.