Yanaka · Tokyo neighborhood guide
Things to Do in Yanaka
Yanaka is Tokyo's best-preserved old town: a quiet shitamachi quarter of temple lanes, a retro shopping street, and a famous cherry-lined cemetery, in one of the few parts of the city to survive the war and the earthquakes largely intact. Here are the best things to do, ranked and judged, so you know what is worth your time.
Yanaka in brief
- What is Yanaka known for?
- Yanaka is Tokyo's best-preserved old town: a quiet shitamachi quarter of temples, the retro Yanaka Ginza shopping street, a famous cherry-lined cemetery, and a strong association with cats. It is one of the few parts of the city that survived the war and the earthquakes largely intact.
- What is there to do in Yanaka?
- Walk the Yanaka Ginza shopping street and its sunset steps, stroll the peaceful Yanaka Cemetery, visit the sculptor's house at the Asakura Museum and the old Tennoji temple, and walk out to Nezu Shrine for its red torii tunnel and spring azaleas.
- Is Yanaka worth visiting?
- Yes, especially if you want a slower, older Tokyo. It is free to wander, easy to reach from Nippori station, and a complete change of pace from Shibuya or Shinjuku. Most people spend a half day here.
Get oriented
How Yanaka fits together
Yanaka is small, flat, and made for walking, fanning out from Nippori station.
Most walks start at Nippori, on the Yamanote loop. The wide, green Yanaka Cemetery sits right by the west exit, with Tennoji temple at its edge; the Asakura Museum is a few minutes north, and just beyond it the Yuyake Dandan steps drop down into the Yanaka Ginza shopping street. From there the temple lanes and small galleries lead southwest toward Nezu and Sendagi, where Nezu Shrine and its torii tunnel sit about fifteen minutes' walk from the heart of Yanaka. You can see the whole area on foot in a half day.
A half-day loop on foot, starting at Nippori station:
See & do, ranked
The best things to do in Yanaka
Our honest ranking of what is worth your time, from the must-sees to a tourist-light hidden gem, with a verdict on each so you know what to prioritize and what to skip.
Must-see
The essentials, ranked.- 1
Yanaka Ginza Worth itYanaka Ginza
Tokyo's best-loved old-town shopping street: croquettes, cats, and the famous sunset steps.
Yanaka Ginza is a 170-meter shopping street of about 60 small, family-run shops, and the single best reason most people come to Yanaka. You reach it down the Yuyake Dandan, the sunset steps that frame the street at golden hour, and then you simply graze your way along: a hot menchi-katsu or croquette from the butcher, a cat-tail doughnut, tea and traditional sweets. It is also Tokyo's best-known cat town, with cat figures perched on the rooftops and a hunt for seven hidden wooden cats along the street. The honest catch is that it is short, you can walk its length in a few minutes, and it is now firmly on the tourist trail, so the most famous snack stalls draw real queues on weekends. Come on a weekday late morning or near sunset, and give it thirty minutes to an hour. The street is free; most shops open from late morning, and many take Monday or Tuesday off.
Most shops late morning to early evening; many closed Monday or TuesdayGood for families, couples, solo
- 2
By Nippori Worth itYanaka Cemetery
A peaceful, cherry-lined cemetery where the last shogun is buried, right beside Nippori station.
Yanaka Cemetery is a wide, green, surprisingly peaceful place to walk, opened as a public cemetery in 1874 on land the Meiji government had taken from the neighbouring Tennoji temple two years earlier. Its central path, Sakura-dori, is a celebrated cherry-blossom avenue that turns into a tunnel of pink in late March and early April and draws far smaller crowds than Ueno Park next door. It is best known for one grave in particular: Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the fifteenth and last shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate, who handed power back to the emperor in 1868 and lies here in the family enclosure, visible through the gates. The industrialist Shibusawa Eiichi, whose face is on the latest 10,000-yen note, is buried here too. The cemetery is free, open at all hours, and home to a well-known population of cats. Budget half an hour, or longer in blossom season.
Open 24 hoursGood for solo, couples, families
- 3
Nezu Worth the hypeNezu Shrine
A 1706 shrine with a vermilion torii tunnel and a spring hillside of azaleas, a short walk west.
Strictly speaking, Nezu Shrine sits just over the boundary in neighbouring Nezu, about a fifteen-minute walk west of the heart of Yanaka, but it is the highlight of the wider old-Tokyo route that Tokyo's own tourism board publishes as the Yanaka and Nezu walk, and it is worth the detour. The shrine is ancient by legend, said to have been founded some 1,900 years ago, but what you see today was built in 1706 by Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, the fifth shogun, and several of its ornate vermilion buildings survive intact as designated Important Cultural Properties. Two things draw people: a corridor of closely spaced red torii gates climbing the hillside, a quieter cousin of Kyoto's Fushimi Inari, and a hillside garden of around 3,000 azaleas that blooms through April into early May, the centerpiece of the annual Bunkyo Azalea Festival. The main grounds are free; the azalea garden charges a small fee during the festival.
Good for couples, families, solo
Worth it with more time
Good additions once you've done the icons.- 1
Yanaka Worth itAsakura Museum of Sculpture
A sculptor's atmospheric house and studio, with a carp-pond courtyard and Tokyo's oldest roof garden.
The Asakura Museum of Sculpture is the former home and studio of Fumio Asakura (1883 to 1964), the artist often called the father of modern Japanese sculpture, and the building is as much the draw as the bronzes inside it. Asakura designed it himself as two joined worlds: a tall, light-filled reinforced-concrete studio on one side, and a traditional Japanese house on the other, wrapped around a still courtyard pond set with large stones. Climb to the rooftop garden, the oldest surviving one in Tokyo, for a view over the old-town roofs. You take your shoes off at the door, so wear socks. Admission is about 500 yen, and it is open 9:30 to 16:30, but note it closes on Mondays and Thursdays.
Good for couples, solo, families
- 2
By Nippori Worth itTennoji Temple
A quiet temple by the station with a 1690 bronze Great Buddha.
Tennoji sits right by Nippori station at the southern edge of the cemetery, a natural first or last stop on a Yanaka walk. Its centerpiece is the Great Buddha of Yanaka, a seated bronze figure of Shaka Nyorai cast in 1690, weathered to a soft green and presiding over a small, calm courtyard. The temple was founded in 1274, and the public cemetery next door actually grew out of its grounds after the Meiji government took the land. There was once a famous five-story pagoda here too, but it was lost to a fire in 1957 and only its stone base remains, out among the graves. The grounds are free and open through the day.
Good for solo, families, couples
- 3
Yanaka (Nezu side) MixedSCAI The Bathhouse
Contemporary art inside a converted 200-year-old bathhouse, worth it only if a show is on.
One of Tokyo's most distinctive small galleries hides behind the wooden facade of a former public bathhouse. Kashiwayu served the neighbourhood for some two centuries before SCAI The Bathhouse reopened it as a contemporary art space in 1993, keeping the high bathhouse ceiling and the old wooden shoe lockers, and it has since shown the likes of Louise Bourgeois, Anish Kapoor, and Tatsuo Miyajima. Entry is free. The honest catch is that it is a working gallery, not a museum: it closes on Sundays, Mondays, and public holidays, and it shuts entirely between exhibitions, so it is easy to arrive to a locked door. Check what is on at scaithebathhouse.com before you make the trip, and treat it as a detour for contemporary-art fans rather than a sure thing.
Good for couples, solo
- 4
By Nippori Worth itKyo-o-ji Temple
A small temple whose gate still carries bullet holes from the last battle of the samurai era.
Tucked into the lanes near Nippori, Kyo-o-ji is the kind of quiet, working temple Yanaka is full of, with one arresting detail. Its main gate still carries bullet holes from the Battle of Ueno in 1868, the brief, decisive clash in which the new imperial army crushed the last loyalists of the shogun, the Shogitai, who scattered through these northern hills as they retreated. The temple was founded in 1655 and has stood through everything since, including the wars and fires that flattened so much of low-city Tokyo. There is not much to do here beyond look and read the marks, but it is free, genuinely off the tourist path, and a quiet reminder of how close this calm neighbourhood once came to the fighting.
Free10 minGrounds open during the dayGood for solo, couples
Hidden gems
Where the crowds thin out.- Hidden gem
Central Yanaka Worth itHAGISO
A 1950s wooden apartment saved from demolition, reborn as a cafe and gallery.
When this 1955 wooden apartment block was due to be torn down, a group of its art-student residents talked the owner into one last exhibition instead, and that show drew enough people to save the building. It reopened in 2013 as HAGISO, a small cultural complex with a cafe, HAGI CAFE, and a rotating gallery downstairs. It went on to launch hanare, a whole-town-as-a-hotel concept where guests check in here, sleep in a converted apartment nearby, and bathe at the local sento. It is exactly the Yanaka story in one building: old things kept and quietly made new. Wander in for a coffee and whatever is on the gallery walls; entry is free, and you pay only for what you order.
Good for couples, solo
Verdicts and rankings are our own; ratings open each place on Google. Prices, where shown, are an approximate per-person guide in USD.
Eat & drink
Where to eat and drink in Yanaka
Yanaka eats old-school and cheap: street snacks off the shopping street, a century-old coffee house, and a famous shaved-ice queue. A few we'd point you to:
Kayaba Coffee
Ueno-Sakuragi cornerYanaka's most famous coffee house, in a wooden building from 1916 and serving coffee since 1938, revived in 2009 after the original owner passed away. Order the fluffy tamago sando (egg sandwich) and the Russian, a house drink of coffee blended with cocoa. The small upstairs room fills fast, so come off-peak. Closed Mondays.
on Google
Himitsudo
YanakaA shaved-ice (kakigori) shop so popular it draws hour-long queues on summer weekends, using natural ice hand-shaved to order and house-made syrups from seasonal Japanese fruit. Worth the wait on a quieter day, or come in the cooler months when the line dies down. Closed Monday and Tuesday.
on Google
Niku no Suzuki
Yanaka GinzaThe signature eat-while-you-walk snack of Yanaka Ginza, from a long-running butcher shop: a juicy minced-beef menchi-katsu fried to order for a couple of hundred yen. Expect a short line at weekends, and eat it hot on the spot.
on Google
Yanaka Shippoya
Yanaka GinzaA nod to the cat town: baked doughnut sticks shaped and decorated to look like cats' tails, in around a dozen flavours made fresh each morning. A cheap, photogenic thing to eat as you walk the street.
on Google
Getting around
Getting around Yanaka
Yanaka is one of Tokyo's easiest neighbourhoods to reach and the most rewarding to walk.
Nippori Station
Most Yanaka walks start at Nippori, on the JR Yamanote and Keihin-Tohoku lines plus the private Keisei line. Take the west exit and the cemetery, Tennoji, and Yanaka Ginza are all a few minutes away on foot.
Sendagi and Nezu
Sendagi and Nezu stations on the Tokyo Metro Chiyoda line serve the western, Nezu side, including Nezu Shrine. Sendagi gives the flatter, step-free approach to Yanaka Ginza.
Straight from Narita
The Keisei Skyliner runs from Narita Airport to Nippori in under 40 minutes, so you can be in old Tokyo almost as soon as you land.
Made for walking
Yanaka is flat, compact, and one of the few parts of Tokyo to survive the war and the earthquakes largely intact, so the pleasure is in wandering the lanes. Don't miss the Yuyake Dandan steps down into Yanaka Ginza at sunset.
Where to stay
Where to stay in Yanaka
Yanaka itself is a quiet, residential corner with only a handful of small inns, so most visitors sleep nearby and come for the day. Where you base yourself shapes the trip:
Around Nippori
The most convenient base, on the Yamanote loop and the Narita Skyliner, with a cluster of business hotels. You step off the train and straight into the old town.
In Yanaka itself
A few traditional guesthouses and small ryokan sit among the temple lanes, including some long-running family inns. Quiet at night and full of atmosphere, but options are limited, so book early.
Nezu and Sendagi
Leafy, low-rise residential streets on the Chiyoda line, near Nezu Shrine, calm in the evening and an easy walk into Yanaka.
Nearby Ueno
One stop south, Ueno has the big hotels, the park and its museums, and the Ameyoko market, with Yanaka a short walk or one train away. A practical base if you want more rooms to choose from.
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View the guideWho it's for
Yanaka for families, couples, and solo
- Yanaka for families
- Yanaka is easy with kids: cat-tail doughnuts and croquettes to eat as you walk down Yanaka Ginza, real cats to spot on the rooftops, and the wide, flat paths of the cemetery to run off energy. Nothing here needs booking ahead.
- Yanaka for couples
- Time the Yuyake Dandan steps for sunset, linger over coffee in a century-old kissaten, wander the temple lanes, and walk out to Nezu Shrine's torii tunnel. Slow and quiet, the opposite of central Tokyo.
- Yanaka for solo travelers
- Yanaka is made for unhurried solo wandering: galleries in old buildings, a kissaten to read in, shrine and temple lanes with almost no one about, and a kakigori queue worth joining. Safe, walkable, and easy to lose an afternoon in.
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