Tokyo
The silver mint that gave the district its name moved away in 1801. The willows came later, and only because they were the one tree the high water would not kill.
Foreign luxury houses and Japanese shops over a century old stand along the same street. On weekend afternoons Chuo-dori closes to traffic and you can walk down the middle of the road. Behind the frontages are bars you cannot enter without an introduction, and workshops where things are still made.
The Classics
The spine of Ginza stretches from Shimbashi to Kyobashi, lined with flagship stores of Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Cartier alongside Japanese heritage brands. On weekends and public holidays, the street closes to traffic and becomes a leisurely pedestrian mall known as 'Hokosha Tengoku.'
💡 Visit on a Sunday afternoon when the street is car-free. The golden-hour light on the glass towers around 4–5 PM makes for spectacular photos.
A 12-story stationery landmark operating since 1904, Itoya is far more than a paper shop. Each floor is dedicated to a different creative category — fountain pens, travel goods, handmade washi, fresh flowers, and even a rooftop farm. A pilgrimage site for design lovers worldwide.
💡 The basement floors stock rare Japanese washi and custom letterpress cards. The upper floors have an ink-blending counter where staff will mix a bottle to your own recipe — check availability in advance.
A theatre built for kabuki and still at the centre of it. The Momoyama-style front, rebuilt in 2013, is a landmark on Harumi-dori, and there are afternoon and evening programmes all year. A small Kabuki Inari shrine stands to the right of the main entrance, and the fifth floor has a roof garden that is free to enter.
💡 The single-act seats let you watch just one act. Reserved ones go on sale online from noon the day before; the unreserved ones from ten in the morning at the theatre window. The price depends on the act. It is the way in for anyone put off by the length of a full programme.
Local Secrets
Built in 1932, this Art Deco apartment block on a Ginza 1-chome side street is the oldest residential building in Ginza and now houses over 30 tiny artist studios and galleries across its upper floors. Unlike the polished commercial galleries nearby, works here are raw, personal, and often surprisingly affordable.
💡 There is no single admission. Wander up the narrow staircase and knock on open doors — most artists welcome visitors, especially on weekend afternoons.
A design gallery run by Dai Nippon Printing, free to enter, in the basement of the DNP Ginza building. It puts on a new one-man show each month — Tanaka Ikko, Kamekura Yusaku and others among Japan's graphic designers. It is a single room, and twenty minutes will cover it.
💡 Entry is free. Exhibitions rotate roughly every month and are often monographic shows of legendary Japanese designers like Ikko Tanaka or Yusaku Kamekura. Check the ggg website before visiting.
A tiny vermilion Inari shrine tucked into the 13th-floor rooftop garden of GINZA SIX, invisible from the street below. It was moved up here from the roof of the old Matsuzakaya Ginza store when the building opened in 2017, and the surrounding 4,000 m² garden is one of the calmest spots in central Tokyo.
The Classics
A sushi house open since 1935, known as the place that devised the gunkan-maki. The Ginza original has eight seats at a hinoki counter, with the hands doing the work directly in front of you. Booking is required.
💡 Lunch omakase starts around ¥15,000–¥20,000, roughly half the dinner price. Book at least two weeks ahead online via their official site.
A fruit parlour a minute from the station, and a distinct company from the more famous Senbikiya Sohonten in Nihonbashi despite the shared name and history. Seasonal fruit sandwiches and parfaits, served in a small dining room above the fruit shop.
💡 The gift melons can be shipped abroad, with the plant-quarantine paperwork included. Ask at the counter.
Local Secrets
A legendary standing bar that opened in 2002 on the 7th floor of the New Ginza Building in Ginza 7-chome. It is famous for one thing: a highball made with no ice at all — freezer-chilled Suntory Kaku whisky, cold soda and a twist of lemon peel, poured with almost religious precision. Beloved by Ginza salarymen and off-duty chefs alike.
💡 It opens around three. There are very few places at the counter and they fill quickly. Cash only.
A coffee house open since 1948. Its founder, Sekiguchi Ichiro, went on roasting himself past the age of eighty. At the shop in Ginza 8-chome the beans are aged for decades before they are ground. Few places still work this way.
💡 Order the 『Blanc et Noir』 (black coffee poured over fresh cream) or ask about the aged single-origin selection. Sekiguchi-san passed away in 2018 at age 103; his team maintains every recipe exactly.
The willows of Ginza were not chosen for their charm. In the mid-1870s, as the brick town went up, what are generally called Japan’s first street trees were planted along Ginza-dōri: cherry, pine and maple. All of them died. This is land the Tokugawa reclaimed from the sea, the water table sits high, and those roots could not take it. What survived was the willow, which likes wet ground. By 1884 almost every street tree here was a willow. The tree that became the face of the district was not anyone’s idea of it — it is simply what was left when the others failed.
Those willows were pulled out too, all of them, in 1921, to widen the roadway. Ginkgos went in to replace them and burned in the Great Kantō Earthquake two years later. Here the story turns strange. In 1929, eight years after the willows were gone, a song called Tokyo March — “the Ginza willows I long for” — sold a quarter of a million records. When the country was singing it, there was not one willow standing in Ginza. People were missing a row of trees they had never seen.
Then the song brought the trees back. As the longing grew louder, local shopkeepers’ associations and a newspaper donated nine hundred willows, planted along the pavements from Kyōbashi to Shinbashi and from Hibiya to Tsukiji, and in March 1932 Ginza held a festival for the return of the willows. That planting was lost in the war. In May 1984 a newspaper reported that some of the Ginza willows had survived out in Meguro; two men were given fifty cuttings, took a hundred and fifty of them, and got eighty-six to root. What moves along Nishi-Ginza-dōri and Yanagi-dōri today are the children of those trees. The most famous tree in this district has never once chosen to be here. The water chose it, the road tore it out, and a popular song called it back.
Nishi-Ginza-dori
For one day, Children's Day, about a kilometre of Nishi-Ginza-dori from 1-chome to 8-chome is closed to traffic. Parades and events run from eleven to five. Willow saplings are given away — that is the fixture of this festival — and it ends when they run out.
Dates shift from year to year. Check the shrine or organiser before you plan around one.
Positioned at the Hibiya intersection overlooking the Imperial Palace moat, The Peninsula is consistently ranked among Asia's finest city hotels. Rooms blend Art Deco detailing with Japanese craft materials, and the rooftop Peter restaurant offers one of Tokyo's most dramatic skyline views.
From approx. ¥120,000/night for a standard room; suites considerably higher.
Opened in 2023 on the top floors of Tokyo Midtown Yaesu, this is Bulgari’s most architecturally striking property, designed with deep references to Japanese wabi-sabi aesthetics. Il Ristorante – Niko Romito serves exceptional Italian cuisine, and the spa is among the finest in the city.
From approx. ¥200,000/night; expect considerably more for suites and peak season.
A serviced-apartment property in Tsukiji, a short walk from Ginza's east side. Full kitchens and separate living space make it a genuinely better fit than a hotel room for stays of a week or more, at a fraction of a Ginza hotel's nightly rate for a comparable amount of space.
From approx. ¥20,000–¥35,000/night depending on season and room type.
From Shibuya
17 min · direct · Tokyo Metro Ginza Line · ¥210
From Shinjuku
23 min · direct · Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line · ¥210
From Tokyo Station
2 min · direct · Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line · ¥180
From Ueno
13 min · direct · Tokyo Metro Ginza Line · ¥180
From Ikebukuro
21 min · direct · Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line · ¥210
From Shinagawa
17 min · 1 transfer (change at Shimbashi) · JR Yamanote Line → Tokyo Metro Ginza Line · ¥380
From Narita Airport
85 min · 1 transfer (change at Tokyo Station) · Narita Express → Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line · ¥3,320The N’EX has no unreserved car; all seats are reserved.
From Haneda Airport
37 min · 2 transfers (change at Hamamatsucho and Shimbashi) · Tokyo Monorail → JR Yamanote Line → Tokyo Metro Ginza Line · ¥850
Times are for a typical daytime weekday and fares are ordinary tickets, rounded. Both change — check a route planner on the day.
Three subway lines serve Ginza: the Ginza, Hibiya and Marunouchi lines. From Narita, the Narita Express reaches Tokyo Station in about 60 minutes, and the Marunouchi line covers the last two stops in about four. From Haneda, the Tokyo Monorail or the Keikyu line takes 20 to 30 minutes to Hamamatsucho or Shinagawa, and the subway another 10 to 15 from there.
Ginza is engaging year-round, but late March to early April (cherry blossom season) and November (autumn illuminations on Chuo-dori) are particularly atmospheric. Summer evenings are vibrant with rooftop bar crowds. Avoid the first week of January when many boutiques and restaurants close for the New Year.
Many Ginza boutiques — including several Japanese jewelers and leather goods makers — offer complimentary gift wrapping in premium Japanese washi paper that is itself a work of art. Always ask for 'tsutsumi' (wrapping) even for small purchases. Also, the covered arcades of Ginza 5-chome connecting to Higashi-Ginza station are lined with tiny specialist shops (lacquer, fans, woodblock prints) that most visitors walk straight past.
A ginza was a place where silver coin was struck. In 1612 the silver mint was moved from Sunpu to a site south of Kyobashi, and the name of that office became the name of the district. The mint itself moved on to Kakigara-cho, in what is now Ningyocho, in 1801; only the name stayed behind.
