Imperial Palace East Gardens

For more than two and a half centuries, Tokyo was ruled from Edo Castle, the vast fortress of the Tokugawa shoguns and once the largest castle in the world. After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the emperor moved here from Kyoto, and the castle grounds became the Imperial Palace, still home to Japan's imperial family. Most of the palace is private, but the East Gardens, laid out on the site of the castle's innermost circles — the Honmaru, Ninomaru and part of the Sannomaru — are open to the public free of charge, and they make a surprisingly peaceful oasis among the office towers of Marunouchi. You enter through one of the great gates, usually the Otemon, a massive wooden gatehouse set in walls of colossal fitted stones, and pick up a plastic admission token that you return when you leave. Inside, paths climb past old guardhouses where samurai once checked visitors, through the stone walls of the inner gates, and onto the broad lawn of the Honmaru, where the shogun's palace once stood. At its far end rises the Tenshudai, the enormous stone base of the castle keep, which burned in 1657 and was never rebuilt; climb it for a view across the lawn. The Fujimi-yagura, a surviving three-story turret, stands on the southern wall. Below, the Ninomaru Garden is a classic Japanese stroll garden with a pond, carp, a waterfall and seasonal flowers. The gardens are closed on Mondays and Fridays and over the New Year, and open from 9am with closing times that change through the year.

The East Gardens are best enjoyed slowly and in season. Spring brings cherry and plum blossoms, early summer the irises and azaleas of the Ninomaru Garden, and late November and early December the autumn leaves; winter is quiet and clear, with long views across the lawns. Near the Otemon gate, the Museum of the Imperial Collections, Sannomaru Shozokan, displays treasures from the imperial household, from paintings and calligraphy to crafts; it has been rebuilt and expanded in recent years and charges a modest admission. Because the gardens close in the late afternoon — as early as 4pm in winter, with last entry half an hour before — plan a morning or early afternoon visit.

Beyond the East Gardens, the palace outer grounds are free and open at all hours. From Kokyo Gaien, the wide gravel plaza in front of the palace, you can see the famous view of the Nijubashi bridge reflected in the moat with the Fushimi turret behind it, the image on countless postcards. The full loop around the palace moats is about five kilometers and is Tokyo's most famous jogging route, popular with runners at dawn and in the evening; walkers can follow it too, past the Chidorigafuchi moat, which becomes one of the city's best cherry-blossom spots in spring, with rowing boats on the water. The Imperial Household Agency also runs free guided tours of parts of the inner palace grounds on many days, which require registration, and on 2 January and the emperor's birthday the inner grounds open to the public for the imperial greetings.

The gardens are a five-minute walk from Otemachi Station and about fifteen from Tokyo Station's Marunouchi side, so they slot neatly into a day around central Tokyo. Combine them with a stroll through the redbrick Tokyo Station building and the Marunouchi office district, lunch at the KITTE building's rooftop garden overlooking the station, and an afternoon in Ginza. Hotels such as Aman Tokyo and HOSHINOYA Tokyo are steps from the moat.