Published on : 05 Oct 2026
Our Things to Do in Hiroshima guide covers the essential stops — the Peace Memorial Museum, the Atomic Bomb Dome, Itsukushima Shrine’s floating torii gate. This guide goes further into places most visitors on a 1–2 day Hiroshima stop never reach: a few quieter, equally significant memorial sites within walking distance of the Dome that receive a fraction of the main museum’s visitor traffic, a mountain temple with its own waterfall that survived the bombing’s destruction largely untouched, and a coastal town an hour away where cats roam preserved Edo-period temple lanes.
| # | Place | Category | Best For | Best Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | National Peace Memorial Hall | Memorial | Quiet underground remembrance space | Any time |
| 2 | Rest House | Historic building | A-bombed building with preserved basement | Any time |
| 3 | Honkawa Elementary School Peace Museum | Memorial/Museum | A preserved school building, rarely visited | Any time |
| 4 | Fudoin Temple | Temple | One of few original buildings near the hypocenter | Any time |
| 5 | Mitaki-dera Temple | Mountain temple | Waterfall, forest setting, autumn foliage | Autumn |
| 6 | Hijiyama Park | Park | Hilltop views, contemporary art museum | Cherry blossom season |
| 7 | Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum | Museum | Japanese and Western art, adjacent to Shukkeien | Any time |
| 8 | Daisho-in Temple | Temple | Miyajima’s other major temple complex | Any time |
| 9 | Senjokaku Hall & Five-Story Pagoda | Historic site | Miyajima’s largest wooden pavilion | Any time |
| 10 | Onomichi | Coastal town | Temple walk, cat-filled lanes | Any season |
| 11 | Shimanami Kaido | Cycling route | Island-hopping cycling route | Spring, autumn |
Location: Peace Memorial Park, underground | Best For: A quieter, more contemplative remembrance space than the main museum | Best Time: Any time
An underground memorial hall, distinct from the Peace Memorial Museum above ground, built around a circular hall representing the time of the bombing (8:15 AM) and a registry of victims’ names and photographs that visitors can search — a significantly less crowded, more personally reflective space than the main museum, and free to enter.
Location: Peace Memorial Park, near the Atomic Bomb Dome | Best For: A preserved basement that survived the blast | Best Time: Any time
A former kimono shop and later bank building, Rest House was one of the few structures near the hypocenter to remain standing, and its basement — where an employee survived the blast — has been preserved and is open to the public, offering a specific, lesser-known physical connection to the events of August 1945 just steps from the Dome.
Location: A short walk from the Peace Memorial Park | Best For: A preserved school building, rarely visited by foreign tourists | Best Time: Any time
One of the few school buildings near the hypocenter to partially survive, Honkawa Elementary maintains a small memorial museum within its original structure — a quiet, specific counterpoint to the main Peace Memorial Museum’s larger scale, almost entirely unvisited by the international tour groups that fill the main park.
Location: Northern Hiroshima, a short bus ride from the city center | Best For: One of the few original wooden structures to survive near the hypocenter | Best Time: Any time
Fudoin’s main hall, a nationally designated Important Cultural Property, is one of very few wooden buildings in Hiroshima to survive the 1945 bombing largely intact despite its relative proximity to the hypocenter — a genuinely significant historic site that receives only a small fraction of the Peace Memorial Park’s visitor traffic.
Location: Western Hiroshima, a short train and uphill walk from the city center | Best For: A forested mountain temple with its own waterfall | Best Time: Autumn, for foliage
Named for its three waterfalls, Mitaki-dera’s forested mountainside setting — moss-covered stone Buddhist statues, a multi-story pagoda relocated from Wakayama Prefecture, and genuinely peaceful walking paths — offers one of Hiroshima’s most underrated natural and spiritual settings, a world away from the Peace Memorial Park’s urban setting just a few kilometers distant.
Location: Eastern Hiroshima, a hilltop setting | Best For: City views and the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art | Best Time: Cherry blossom season
A hilltop park offering panoramic views across Hiroshima, Hijiyama is also home to the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art — one of Japan’s earliest dedicated contemporary art museums — and roughly 1,300 cherry trees that make it a genuine local alternative to the more crowded Peace Memorial Park for spring hanami.
Location: Adjacent to Shukkeien Garden | Best For: A combined garden-and-museum visit | Best Time: Any time
Distinct from the Hiroshima Museum of Art covered in our Things to Do guide, the Prefectural Art Museum’s collection spans both traditional Japanese and Western art, and its direct connection to Shukkeien Garden next door makes the pairing a natural, efficient half-day combination.
Location: Miyajima Island, a short walk from Itsukushima Shrine | Best For: Miyajima’s other major temple, with genuinely distinctive features | Best Time: Any time
Miyajima’s second major religious site after Itsukushima Shrine, Daisho-in’s grounds include a row of spinning sutra wheels along the entrance stairway (spinning each one is said to carry the same merit as reading the sutra inside), hundreds of small stone jizo statues dressed in knitted caps, and a genuinely different, more intimate atmosphere than the more famous shrine nearby.
Location: Miyajima Island, adjacent to Itsukushima Shrine | Best For: Miyajima’s largest wooden structure | Best Time: Any time
Senjokaku (“Hall of a Thousand Mats,” though actually closer to 850 tatami mats), a large open wooden pavilion commissioned in 1587 and left intentionally unfinished, sits beside Miyajima’s elegant five-story pagoda — both structures are visible from the water on the ferry approach to the island but are frequently skipped by visitors who head straight for the main shrine.
Location: Approximately 1 hour from Hiroshima by train | Best For: A preserved hillside temple walk and a notable cat population | Best Time: Any season
A small coastal city built up a steep hillside overlooking the Seto Inland Sea, Onomichi’s “Temple Walk” connects 25 temples along a roughly 2.5-hour walking route through narrow lanes and stone stairways — the city has also become specifically known for its large population of resident cats, to the point of having its own small Cat Alley and cat-themed shops, a genuinely charming, low-key day trip distinct from anything else on a typical Hiroshima itinerary.
Location: Starting from Onomichi | Best For: A scenic island-hopping cycling route | Best Time: Spring or autumn
A 60km cycling route connecting Honshu to Shikoku across a series of bridges and small islands in the Seto Inland Sea, the Shimanami Kaido is considered one of Japan’s best cycling experiences — bike rentals are available directly at Onomichi, and even a partial ride across the first bridge or two offers genuinely spectacular inland sea views for visitors without time for the full route.
About Travel Tourister Travel Tourister’s destination specialists have gone well beyond Hiroshima’s main stops — into the National Peace Memorial Hall’s quiet underground registry, Mitaki-dera’s forested waterfalls, and Onomichi’s cat-filled temple lanes — to put together a genuinely differentiated list of places to visit in Hiroshima for 2026 visitors who’ve already covered the basics.
Posted By : Vinay
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