Everyone gives Hiroshima
four hours.
That is the mistake.
Three of the ten pages ranking for this city still tell you to climb a castle keep that closed in March 2026. Miyajima runs on the tide, not the clock. This site gives every Hiroshima decision a verdict, both currencies, and the tram stop.
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The big callsHiroshima Castle — the keep is shut
Hiroshima Castle's keep closed to the public on 22 March 2026 — after 68 years — because the 1958 reinforced-concrete reconstruction no longer met earthquake standards. A wooden rebuild is planned but years out. The grounds, the moat, the bomb-scarred stone walls and the Ninomaru reconstruction are all still open, and all still free. The tower you came to go inside is not. Go for 45 minutes, spend nothing, and do not walk across town for a view that no longer exists. Every other page ranking for this castle was written before it shut.
Miyajima: high tide or low tide?
Miyajima runs on the tide, not the clock. Above 250cm the Great Torii appears to float and the shrine's corridors stand over water; below 100cm you can walk out across the sand to the gate's legs. Those are the Miyajima Tourist Association's own published thresholds, and they are measured against the Hiroshima Port datum — 200cm below mean sea level — so a generic tide app will give you numbers that look similar and are not comparable. Check the official table before you book the ferry, not after. If you can only have one, take the high tide — the floating gate is the photograph you came for, and standing under it is the novelty. But the flat middle band gives you neither, and that is the one nobody warns you about.
Miyajima — day trip or stay the night?
The most consistently repeated upgrade advice for this region, and it is right. The island's distinctive asset — the torii lit after dark, deer in empty streets, the shops shut and the queues gone — is only available to people who sleep there. If you have three days in Hiroshima, spend one night on the island. If you have two, day-trip it and do not feel short-changed.
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Live pricesThe island is not.
That is the decision.
Hiroshima has some of the best-value beds on the Sanyo line — a solid business 3-star near the station runs about ¥9,500 and the city charges no lodging tax. Miyajima starts at roughly twice that, because the island's inventory is ryokan with two meals rather than hotels. Book the city for a two-day trip; book one island night if you have three days, and book it early, because Miyajima has very few rooms.
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