Ireland day 1323. Tuesday 13 May 2025- Kyoto 2

Today’s summary	Caught the 10:02 Shinkansen to Hiroshima. The train covered the 350km in just over an hour and a half and was impressive. Once in Hiroshima, walked to the Peace Memorial Park and had a look round the very sobering museum. Walked back to the station via Hiroshima castle grounds and Shukkeien garden. Caught the 1703 Shinkansen back to Kyoto and bought tickets for tomorrow’s journey once we got there. Finished off with bento box dinner in the roof garden of Kyoto station before returning to the Ryokan.
Today’s weather	Warm dry and sunny all day. Light southerly wind. Appx 25c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Hiroshima

Commentary

High up on anyone’s list of “must do” things on a trip to Japan would almost certainly be a ride on a “Shinkansen” high speed train, and a visit the atomic bomb memorial site in Hiroshima. The former is exciting, the latter is sobering and today we did them both.

Once again, we were up bright and early for a 7:30 am breakfast. And, like yesterday, we enjoyed a traditional Japanese “cooked at seat” dining experience. Although this morning it featured wagyu beef (which was particularly delicious) rather than fish.

After breakfast, we beat the well-worn path (actually the underground train) to Kyoto station and then eventually located platform 13 for the 10:02 Shinkansen to Hiroshima. The train, which had come from Tokyo, was of course spot on time and turned out to be exceptionally comfortable, even in our standard class. The 350 km (220 mi) journey to Hiroshima took just over an hour and a half and according to my app, the train speed peaked at 305km/h (189mph).

Once at Hiroshima, thanks to a bit of googling, we worked out a walking route down to the Peace Memorial Park on the banks of the Ota river delta. It was a pleasant walk through the hinterlands of Hiroshima, and the route brought us out right by the iconic ruined dome of the Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. The contrast between the beautiful green trees and the atomic bomb-mangled iron and concrete of the devastated building was striking and moving.

We paused for a few moments to contemplate the ruins – now a UNESCO World Heritage Site (like Newgrange, in Ireland) – before moving on and crossing over to the island to see the Peace Memorial Park. This contains the children’s peace monument, the flame of peace, the victims’ memorial cenotaph and of course the peace memorial museum.

We took our time to admire the various monuments, then spent a good hour and a half going round the museum. It contains a fairly harrowing, no holds barred and unvarnished account of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the US Airforce at 8:15am on 6 August 1945. That single bomb left 140,000 in the city dead, but ultimately ushered in the end of the second world war. It was the second time I’d been (the first was ten years ago, in 2015) but no less moving on a second visit.

Afterwards, we reflected over a cup of coffee in a nearby café then started a slow walk back to the station. Along the way, we took a quick look at the site of Hiroshima castle – completely destroyed in 1945 but subsequently rebuilt – and the surprisingly beautiful Shukkeien garden. Well worth the modest ¥350 admission fee, even though we only stayed for 20 minutes or so.

From the garden, we pottered back to the station and arrived in good time for our 1703 Shinkansen back to Kyoto, leaving from platform 14. Again, the journey was speedy and flawless. It’s really impressive how quickly the trains draw up to the platform, how brief the stops are, and how fast they accelerate away again afterwards. There is no space for passenger indecision!

Once back in Kyoto, we went straight to the ticket office to arrange our travel for tomorrow. Then, as it was coming up to 7pm, we bought ourselves a couple of bento boxes, which we enjoyed for dinner back up on the roof garden of Kyoto station.

Afterwards, it was just a short hop on the Green underground line from there to our Ryokan, where we enjoyed a couple of beers and some sake before calling it a day and retiring to bed at about 10pm.

Another memorable and exceptionally rewarding day today which will take quite a long time to process, I think.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Exactly like Connolly Platform six in almost no ways at all	Check out that top speed!

The victims’ memorial cenotaph, with the Atomic Dome in the far distance, in the middle of the arch	The Peace Memorial Museum. It’s well done, and everyone is very subdued as they walk through. There were no prohibitions on photography, but nobody had a camera out. An instinctive sense of respect, and everyone felt it.

In the Shukkeien garden. We didn’t have long before our train, so we just walked through quickly. But it was enough to give us a flavour of a clearly very beautiful spot	Bento boxes at the ready! Dinner in the Sky Garden at Kyoto station this evening

The ruins of the Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall – nowadays often known as the Atomic Bomb Dome