Japan
Kanazawa
Samurai and geisha districts untouched by war where gold leaf gilds everything, even ice cream.
Kanazawa came through the war without a single air raid. While firebombing flattened most Japanese cities, this castle town on the Japan Sea coast was spared, keeping samurai lanes, geisha quarters and gardens that other cities can only rebuild. The result is a city where the Edo period exists not as a replica but as a continuation.
Kenroku-en, one of the three celebrated gardens of Japan, spreads across ten hectares of ponds, streams and pines shaped by gardeners over generations; in winter its trees are strung with rope cones against the snow. Across the Asano River the Higashi Chaya district keeps a street of wooden teahouses from the Edo period where geisha still entertain behind latticed screens. Kanazawa produces almost all of Japan's gold leaf, applied to lacquerware, pottery, temple interiors and, for tourists, soft-serve ice cream. Ōmichō Market has fed the city since the Edo period, and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, a glass circle with no front or back, puts a modern counterweight in the middle of it all.
Solo
Kanazawa rewards unhurried attention — the garden, the craft districts, the museum. A solo visitor can spend a whole morning in Kenroku-en without running out of angles.
Couple
A gold-leaf workshop, a teahouse street at dusk, and a crab dinner at Ōmichō Market — Kanazawa gives couples the cultural richness of Kyoto at half the intensity.
- Kenroku-en has been ranked among the three finest gardens in Japan for well over a century.
- The Higashi Chaya district still has working teahouses behind Edo-period latticed façades.
- The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art is a glass circle with no front or back — enter from any side.
- Kanazawa makes almost all of Japan's gold leaf, visible on everything from temple altars to ice cream.
Ōmichō Market's crab legs eaten standing at the stall, sweet flesh steaming in the cold air.
Jibuni, duck simmered with wheat-gluten dumplings in a lacquer bowl — the dish Kanazawa says is itself.
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