Kitano Ijinkan

北野異人館街（風見鶏の館）

A hillside of Meiji-era Western merchants' houses

⚠ Weathercock House shut 3rd Tuesday

Hours

Weathercock House 9am–5pm (last entry 4:45pm), closed 3rd Tuesday (next day if a holiday); other houses vary

Tickets

Weathercock House ¥500; Weathercock + Moegi ticket ¥800; high-schoolers and under free. Private houses charge separately or by bundle

Address

3-13-3 Kitano-cho, Chuo-ku (Weathercock House)

After Kobe opened to foreign trade in 1868, merchants built their homes on the slope behind Sannomiya, and a few dozen survive. The star is the red-brick Weathercock House with a rooster vane on its spire; next door the pale-green clapboard Moegi House is also city-run, so both are cheap to enter. Most of the others are privately run and sold in bundle tickets. Plenty of visitors say the lanes beat the interiors: stone steps, ivy, and a Starbucks inside an old Western-style house keep the camera busy.