Kobe Port Tower Tickets

Kobe Port Tower is the red steel hourglass that has defined the city’s waterfront since 1963, a piece of retro futurist engineering so distinctive it remains the emblem of Kobe six decades on. A major renovation has given the old landmark new life, adding a rooftop deck open to the harbour breeze on top of its classic observation floors.

Views over Meriken Park

From the top, the harbour spreads below with Meriken Park’s lawns and museums at your feet, the city climbing to the Rokko mountains behind and the bay stretching toward Osaka in front. Night is when the tower district performs, with the waterfront illuminated and the tower itself glowing red over the harbour. The renovated interior adds cafe space and exhibits, so a visit stretches comfortably beyond the quick lap the old tower offered.

The waterfront around it

Meriken Park rewards a wander before or after, taking in the earthquake memorial that preserves a stretch of quake damaged wharf, the maritime museum, and the Harborland shopping and dining district next door, whose ferris wheel and mosaic boardwalk give Kobe its best evening strolling. The tower is the pin holding all of it together.

Getting there

Motomachi Station on the JR and Hanshin lines is about a ten minute walk north of the tower, straight down through the old foreign settlement to the water. From Sannomiya add five minutes, or take the City Loop bus that stops at Meriken Park.

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