Nagasaki Travel Guide

Takashi Nagai was a physician at Nagasaki Medical College who lost his wife in the 1945 atomic bombing and was himself exposed while treating the injured. He spent the years that followed living with leukaemia, writing on radiation sickness and appealing for peace, and died in 1951. The memorial museum opened in 2000 in the Urakami Ueno neighbourhood where he lived, beside the two-tatami hut called Nyokodo, 'love your neighbour as yourself' from the Gospel; there he raised his two children and wrote The Bells of Nagasaki, Leave These Children Behind, The Rosary Chain and River of Life. The first of these, The Bells of Nagasaki (長崎の鐘), was made into both a film and a record. The first-floor gallery holds his belongings, manuscripts, calligraphy and photographs, with a five-minute film on his life and English, Chinese and Korean audio available at the desk; the second floor is a free reading room. The division of labour with the Atomic Bomb Museum is clear: that one explains the instant and the destruction of a city, this one shows how a single person lived and wrote through the six years afterwards, which is why visiting both in one day carries such weight. The gallery fee rose from JPY 100 to JPY 200 on 1 April 2026, with students still free, so the widely quoted JPY 100 is out of date. It opens 09:00-17:00 almost every day except the New Year period, five minutes from the Genbaku-Shiryokan tram stop, and fits a half-day Urakami route with Peace Park, the hypocentre and Urakami Cathedral.

Isemiya Shrine is a shrine in Nagasaki, tied to the port city's trading history, dedicated to Amaterasu and other deities, and, with Suwa Shrine and Matsumori Tenmangu, one of the 'Three Shrines of Nagasaki' — a daily site of worship for Nagasaki residents. Small in size and set among the city's lanes, it has a calm, gentle mood. It bears witness to Nagasaki's history as a trading port and carries local prayers; good for a visit while touring the city and its old streets, taking in the blend of faith and life in this port town.

The Prayer Triangle Zone is the nickname of a corner in Nagasaki's Aioimachi where three places of prayer — Oura Cathedral (Catholic), Oura Suwa Shrine (Shinto) and Myokoji (Buddhist) — stand side by side, their faiths coexisting in peace. Nagasaki's unique religious tolerance grew from its hidden-Christian history and foreign trade; in 2016 'Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region' became a World Heritage site, and this corner is its microcosm. Quiet stone slopes and the occasional 'neighbourhood cat' add to the calm.

Honren-ji (Shorin-zan) is a Nichiren temple in Nagasaki founded in 1620 by the monk Nichiei of Honkei-ji in Omura. Together with Kodo-ji and Daion-ji it ranked among the 'Three Great Temples of Nagasaki'. The site was once a Catholic church ground; a statue of Nichiren presented by Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada stands before the main hall. Destroyed by the atomic bomb, the hall was rebuilt in 1955. The graveyard keeps the tombs of the Takagi family, hereditary Nagasaki magistrates (a city historic site), and the 'Nanban well' from the church era; Katsu Kaishu lodged in its Taisho-in for four years in the late Edo period.

The Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Nagasaki Shipyard Museum stands in Akunoura, Nagasaki, inside the MHI Nagasaki Shipyard, presenting over 160 years of shipbuilding since the 1857 Nagasaki Ironworks. Models, drawings and real parts of warships and merchant vessels trace the birth of Japan's modern shipbuilding; the shipyard is a component of the 'Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution' World Heritage, alongside Hashima (Gunkanjima). As the museum is inside an active yard, visits require advance online booking at set times.

Ikime Hachimangu is a shrine in Nagasaki, dedicated to Hachiman, tied to the city's protective faith. Nagasaki is hilly, and many shrines stand on slopes or high ground, as this one does; its grounds are ringed by old trees, with a solemn air. Moderate in size and rich in history, it is a centre of residents' worship and festivals; good for a visit while touring the city and its slopes, taking in the everyday faith and local life of the port town.