1 Fuji-san (Mount Fuji)
2 Hagi
3 Hiroshima
4 Iriomote-jima
5 Kamakura
6 Kanazawa
7 Kinkakuji Temple, Kyoto
8 Miyajima
9 Todaiji Temple, Nara
10 Tsukiji Fish Market, Tokyo
Hiroshima will always be known as the target of the world's first atomic bomb, but a new city - busy and prosperous - has emerged from the ruins.
Until the morning of 6 August 1945, Hiroshima had largely escaped the bombing that levelled many other cities in Japan. But then the uranium bomb was dropped from the American aircraft Enola Gay at 8:15am and instantly killed some 75,000 people; the death toll has since risen to nearer 200,000, with people dying from the after-effects of radiation.
The city's heart was completely flattened in the blast, so it will be no surprise to discover that Hiroshima is a thoroughly modern city. The principal items of interest commemorate the events of that day, which, it is thought, continue even now to cause abnormally high levels of cancer among the local people. The main symbol of the bomb's destruction is the A-Bomb Dome (Gembaku Domu), formerly the Industrial Promotion Hall and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The ruin, on the riverbank near Aioi-dori, was one of the few constructions to survive the blast. It is an eerie, moving sight, its church-like tower crowned with the fragile remains of the roof, and there are always piles of paper origami cranes in front of it - the crane symbolising longevity and wisdom. Just across the river is the Peace Memorial Park (Heiwa-koen), with a cenotaph and a Peace Flame, which will be extinguished at the moment when the last atomic bomb is destroyed. Within the park is the Peace Memorial Museum, a collection of items - watches found after the blast, for example, with the hands frozen at 8:15 - which, in the simplest and starkest way, illustrate this most appalling of all intrusions into the banality of everyday life. In the same area is the Children's Peace Memorial, a statue recalling a young leukemia victim who was convinced that she would recover if she could fold a thousand paper cranes. She managed 664 before she died. Children now fold paper cranes in her memory.Address: 300km west of Osaka
Bus: Hiroshima
Train: Hiroshima (Shinkansen and JR Sanyo line) to Tokyo, Kyoto, Hakata and Miyajima
Info: JR Hiroshima Station PHONE: (082) 261 1877
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