Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Atomic Bomb Dome)

How to visit, and what you actually pay

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial is two things, and only one of them costs money. The Atomic Bomb Dome — the skeletal ruin left almost directly under the blast and preserved as it stood — and the surrounding Peace Memorial Park, with its Cenotaph and the Children’s Peace Monument hung with thousands of paper cranes, are open-air, free, and accessible at any hour. The Peace Memorial Museum is the part you pay for, and it is just ¥200 (about £0.95) for an adult, ¥100 for high-schoolers and over-65s, and free for younger children. There is no timed ticket to book and no skip-the-line tier worth buying.

Getting there is simple from Hiroshima Station: take a Hiroden streetcar, line 2 towards Miyajima or line 6 towards Eba, and get off at the Genbaku Dome-mae stop — about 15 to 20 minutes for the flat ¥240 (roughly £1.10) fare. The Dome is a few steps from the tram, and the museum sits across the park at the southern end. The museum opens at 07:30 daily, closing at 18:00 in winter, 19:00 for most of the year and 20:00 in August, with last entry half an hour before.

When to go, and an honest word on tone

Go in the morning. School parties and coach tours build through the day, and the museum’s narrow, contemplative galleries are far harder to absorb shoulder-to-shoulder. Walk the Dome, the Cenotaph and the monuments first — give that the better part of an hour — then go through the museum, which needs an unhurried hour and a half to two hours. That makes the whole thing a half day, which is the right amount of time.

This is essential, and it is not a pleasant outing. The museum’s main exhibition is unflinching — personal belongings, photographs and testimony, not abstractions — and most people come out quiet. That is the point, and it is exactly why the ¥200 fee is almost irrelevant. Don’t stack it against a cheerful sight the same morning; pair the Peace Park with a slow lunch and save the Miyajima torii or Shukkeien garden for the next day. Skip the souvenir-photo mindset at the Dome and let the place do what it is there to do.