It was a tiring day as we walked up and up towards the old European Housing district of Kobe. The area is well known for housing several western style houses that belonged to traders in the early 1900’s. Nowadays they have become somewhat of a tourist attraction, attracting several Japanese tourists to this unusual (in the sense of Japanese) architecture. The houses are about a kilometer walk uphill from Sannomiya station, which lies on the JR Kobe line. If your planning to go here it’s best to go during the day as at night good photo opportunities are at a premium (as this is not actually a real tourist destination). For a tourist you have the option of just taking photos and walking around the outside or paying to go inside the more famous houses (some of which have now become museums. You can choose to go into them and pay individually or there is a neat little package (passport) of I believe 9 houses for a relatively cheap price. The passport is available at several small outlets in the area. Getting here by foot takes about 15-20 minutes depending on fast you walk as it is pretty much all uphill and is easily located by following the conveniently located maps in the area. Best bet is just walk uphill towards the mountains and you’ll start finding signs on the residences.
The most famous house that currently resides in the area is the Weathercock house which is famous for its weather cock on the roof (obviously). Admission is relatively cheap and is open for most of the day. Other notable houses include the Austrian houses which also encompass a cafe and a souvenir store, a Dutch Windmill house and a house that looks like its the haunted mansion on the top of the hill. I say this because the house garden and structure seem to be heavily neglected compared to its distinguished neighbors. The area is heavily influenced by Western style architecture with the surrounding houses having a slightly western design. There are several hand made goods in the area for purchase and great soft serve ice creams to keep the heat at bay if your going here in the Summer months. Although the houses might not be anything special to a foreigner who lives surrounded by this style of architecture. It is definitely worth a trip as it doesn’t cost anything to take photos and admire these individual houses that seem almost out of place in the center of a bustling metropolis city of apartment blocks and buildings.
After we saw the majority of the houses from the outside we were more or less at the top of the hill and had pretty good views over part of Kobe. At this point we were pretty tired and decided to put our trek up Mt Rokko on hold for another day. So we decided to just head home. All in the all the European houses can easily take up a good day’s worth of activities and a stop at the museum allows one to learn more about the history of the port city of Kobe.
Travelling with Sig! 