Kobe

Kobe is the capital of Hyogo Prefecture, home to around 1.5 million people, Japan's seventh largest city and its third largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It sits on the north shore of Osaka Bay in the Kansai region, part of the Keihanshin conurbation with Osaka and Kyoto: the city centre is about 35 km west of Osaka and 70 km southwest of Kyoto. Hyogo Port opened to foreign trade on 1 January 1868, and Kobe as it is now was founded on 1 April 1889. The Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995 took some of the port's standing, and it is still one of Japan's busiest container ports.

The oldest written record of the area, the Nihon Shoki, describes the founding of Ikuta Shrine by Empress Jingu in AD 201, and the city's name comes from Kanbe, an old title for the shrine's supporters. The shrine and the Taira fortress nearby were the site of the battle of Ichi-no-Tani in 1184. Behind the city, over Mount Rokko, is Arima Onsen, named in The Pillow Book as one of the three famous springs of Japan and rated the most prestigious hot spring of the Edo period; Toyotomi Hideyoshi went several times in the 16th century. Kobe beef is the other name the city carries, and the restaurants that serve it book up.

Kobe is close enough to Osaka and Kyoto to be a day out, and interesting enough to be the third base in Kansai. We do not list lines or fares here: check the route and the return times in a transit app before you set out, because the last leg back is the part people misjudge. A Suica or Pasmo IC card pays for local trains and buses across the country, and Suica works on iPhone through Apple Wallet, so you can set it up before you fly. Taxis are the expensive fallback, and cash still matters in small restaurants and at bath counters, which is worth knowing before you head over the mountain to Arima.

Kobe averages 17.0°C over the year, with August around 28.6°C and January around 6.2°C, so summer is hot and humid and winter is mild by European standards. The Kansai rainy season runs roughly 7 June to 20 July, and the UK Foreign Office puts typhoons between June and December, peaking from July to September. Book early for Golden Week, Obon and New Year, when the whole country travels at once.

Goodbars sells a Japan eSIM you install at home and switch on when you land; it runs on NTT docomo, Japan's largest mobile network by mobile contracts, and our Japan coverage page shows where it reaches and what independent speed tests measure. Renting a pocket Wi-Fi is a long-standing habit for visitors to Japan too, and it suits a group that moves together all day.