Tokyo Station

Welcome to this historic walk around the Imperial Palace. Over the next couple of hours you'll follow the moats, gates and stone walls of what was once Edo Castle, the seat of the shoguns. Each story starts by itself when you reach a stop, so walk in any order you like. Two stops lie inside the East Gardens, which open in the daytime only. Everything else you can visit at any hour. Your first story is right here. Take a look at the long brick front of Tokyo Station. It opened in 1914, designed by the architect Tatsuno Kingo, and it stretches about 350 metres. In May 1945, an air raid burned out its domes and most of the top floor. After the war it was patched up with two storeys and plain, angular roofs, and in the 1980s there were plans to tear it down. People campaigned to save it. In 2012 it reopened as it looked in 1914, domes and all. Look closely at the top floor. The new bricks were fired specially so they would match the old ones below.