Akasaka Palace

photo by Wiiii · CC BY-SA 3.0/2.5/2.0/1.0

photo by Another Believer · CC BY-SA 4.0

The only habitable 国宝: garden 300 yen, palace and garden 1,500, closed on Wednesdays.

Several visitors describe the bag check as ‘airport level’; once inside, the main hall deliberately echoes Buckingham and Versailles, and the Hall of the Dawn has on its ceiling a god in a chariot chasing the dawn itself. Including the guided tour of the Japanese pavilion, the visit stated by the body that runs the palace takes up to two and a half hours; the main building and the garden alone take a good hour. There are no visitor toilets inside the main building.

Built between 1899 and 1909 by the court architect Katayama Tōkuma as the residence of the Crown Prince, the neo-Baroque palace did not please Emperor Meiji and was little lived in; it became the home of the future Emperor Shōwa from 1924. After the war it housed the National Diet Library and other public offices for years, until in 1967 the government decided to turn it into the State Guest House: the renovation, directed by Murano Tōgo for the main building and by Taniguchi Yoshirō for the Japanese annex, cost 10.8 billion yen and was completed in March 1974. The first state guest, in November, was the American president Gerald Ford. The palace remained closed to the public, apart from three days in 2011, until it opened permanently from April 2016; on 8 December 2009 it became a National Treasure, the first post-war building to receive the designation.

ℹ️ Four different routes, from the garden alone to the guided tour of the Japanese pavilion: garden 300 yen; main building and garden 1,500 (plus a 400 supplement on the ‘premium’ route); building, garden and Japanese pavilion with a guide 2,000 (departures every 30 minutes from 10:30 to 15:00, booking required); pavilion and garden only 1,500. ⚠️ The prices were revised by the managing body on 17/07/2026: if you have read the figure of 1,800 yen for building and garden elsewhere, you were looking at an older page. Open 10:00–17:00 (last entry 16:00, 15:30 on the premium route); closed on Wednesdays and on days reserved for state guests, so the month's calendar must be checked on the official site close to the date of your trip. Airport-style bag check, with queues that vary a lot from day to day; no visitor toilets inside the main building.

🚉 Yotsuya · 15 min walk

Sources: geihinkan.go.jp · geihinkan.go.jp · ja.wikipedia.org

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