Hotels in Hiroshima

Hiroshima is a modern city of 1.2 million on Japan's Inland Sea, rebuilt from the ground up after 1945 and organised around a message rather than a monument. The Peace Memorial Park occupies the delta at the city's heart, with the preserved skeleton of the A-Bomb Dome, the cenotaph and a museum that most visitors find difficult and necessary in equal measure.

Beyond the park, Hiroshima is a relaxed and genuinely likeable place. Trams rattle through the grid, the rebuilt castle and the Shukkei-en garden sit north of the centre, and the local food obsession is okonomiyaki — layered with noodles here, unlike the Osaka version — served at dozens of counters in Okonomimura.

The island of Miyajima is a 40-minute trip by tram and ferry, where the floating torii gate of Itsukushima Shrine stands in the tidal shallows. Shinkansen trains put Kyoto within two hours and Fukuoka within one.