- Time: 4 hours
- Fee: ¥40,000 (about US$266)
- Expenses: about ¥1,500 per person
- Time: 6 hours
- Fee: ¥60,000 (about US$399)
- Expenses: about ¥3,000 per person
Kanazawa is the perfect add-on to the standard Tokyo-Kyoto trip. It’s a small city that is filled with superb sights, including one of Japan’s most famous gardens, preserved geisha districts and some of the best sushi in the land. Our 4- and 6-hour tours are designed to show you the best of this beautiful city in a short time.
- Kanazawa Tour 1: Including Kenroku-en Garden (4 hrs & 6 hrs)
- Kanazawa Tour 2: Off-the-beaten-path (4 hrs & 6 hrs)
Kanazawa Tour 1: Including Kenroku-en Garden
4-Hours
Your guide will meet you at Kanazawa Station or your hotel/ryokan and take you to old geisha districts, stopping at a gold leaf shop to learn about how gold leaf is made. Then you will walk through Kanazawa Castle ruins to reach Kenroku-en Garden, one of Japan’s top three gardens. After touring the sites, your guide will escort you back to Kanazawa Station or give you advice about things to see on your own later in the day. If the tour is in the morning, your guide will help you to your lunch venue.
6-Hours
Our 6-hour Kanazawa tour is similar to our 4-hour tour (above) but after visiting Kenroku-en, you will make a short stop for lunch in the area. Then you’ll travel along secret paths to the stunning D.T. Suzuki Museum where you will learn about the man who introduced Zen Buddhism to the West. The garden at this museum is the perfect embodiment of Zen Philosophy. If you start your day at 9am, you will still have some time to visit other museums or Omicho Market on your own.
As with all our tours, these tours are totally private — you’ll enjoy the incredible sights of Kanazawa in the company of your family and friends and no one else. This is the intelligent way to enjoy one of Japan’s richest historical cities.
The 4-hour tour costs ¥40,000 (about US$266) and the 6-hour tour costs ¥60,000 (about US$399). In addition, we ask that you cover your own expenses on the route (entry fees, snacks, meals, transport etc). We also ask that you cover the guide’s transport and meals (the guide only eats on the 6-hour tour). You do not have to cover the guide’s entry to the sights, because licensed guides do not pay admission fees. The expenses on the 4-hour tour average around ¥1,500 per person. The expenses on the 6-hour tour average around ¥3,000 per person.
Please note that if you are 65 years of age or older, entry to Kenroku-en Garden is free and entry to the D.T. Suzuki Museum is discounted. Please bring ID to prove your age to take advantage of this.
Optional Gold Leaf Experience
If you’d like to add a hands-on experience to either of the above 4- or 6-hour tours, we can arrange a gold leaf experience at a craft workshop along our tour routes. This is great for anyone who wants to do more than just passively observe the wonders of Kanazawa. The experience takes about one hour and costs from ¥1,500 to ¥5,000 per person, depending upon item you choose to make (options include chopsticks, small boxes and small trays. Needless to say, our guides will be with you and can help with translation and explanation. Please let us know if you’d like to do this when you book your tour.
For information on fees, please see the Fees page. To book a tour, contact us.
Photos by David Sanz and Tomoaki Inaba.
Kanazawa Tour 2: Off-the-beaten-path
Kanazawa is one of Japan’s most rewarding cities, but like many popular destinations it can suffer from overcrowding. That’s why we’ve developed this off-the-beaten-track tour, designed to reveal some of Kanazawa’s most fascinating sights while avoiding the crowds found elsewhere.
We begin in a quiet and picturesque geisha district, where beautifully preserved wooden buildings evoke the atmosphere of old Kanazawa. From there we walk through back alleys to a street lined with temples whose design and atmosphere feel quite different from those you may have encountered in Kyoto.
We then visit Myoryu-ji Temple, famous for its hidden rooms, secret stairways and revolving walls—features that earned it the nickname Ninja-dera (“Ninja Temple”). Because of the temple’s unique structure, visits are only permitted for guests aged 12 and above. Your guide will arrange the required reservation in advance; however, availability cannot be guaranteed until the temple begins accepting bookings. If the temple is already fully booked for your date, we will instead include a visit to another garden or cultural site.
Please note that Myoryu-ji is an active religious site with strict visiting rules. Guests are asked to follow the temple’s guidelines during the visit and to avoid cancelling or changing the reservation once it has been secured. The temple entrance fee (¥1,200 per person, including the guide) must be paid in cash at the temple. In the rare event that a reservation must be cancelled after it has been confirmed, the temple charges the full fee.
Next, we walk to the Museum of Architecture, Kanazawa, which celebrates the work of Kanazawa native Yoshio Taniguchi, who designed several buildings in Kanazawa and many others across Japan, including part of the Tokyo National Museum.
We walk through the museum compound to reach the banks of the Sai-gawa River. A short riverside walk offers the perfect opportunity to discuss Kanazawa and the rest of Japan with your guide, who can also provide suggestions for the remainder of your stay.
We then cross the river and make a brief stop at a traditional umbrella shop, which we observe from the outside (and perhaps glimpse the umbrella maker at work inside). We continue onward to the traditional samurai house district, exploring this incredibly atmospheric area and stopping for a drink and sweet at a traditional confectionery. We also visit one of the former samurai residences to see its architecture and garden.
We continue along a canal lined with excellent traditional restaurants and shops. Our guide will then show you a hidden back alley lined with “secret” restaurants and bars, and can recommend places you may wish to return to later in your stay. (It’s hard to find some of these spots unless you visit them at least once in the daytime with a guide.)
On the six-hour version of this tour, your guide will take you to the Omicho Market area for lunch, followed by a stroll through the market, introducing you to some of Kanazawa’s food specialties.
At the conclusion of the tour (either version), your guide can recommend other nearby sights or help you return to your lodgings.
For information on fees, please see the Fees page. To book a tour, contact us.
