Kobe

Kobe has always faced outward. Held between the Rokkō mountains and the Seto Inland Sea, the city opened its port to the world in 1868, and the merchants' mansions of Kitano-chō still climb the hillside in candy-coloured Victorian rows. The result is a city of unusual grace — jazz drifting along Tor Road, sake breweries in Nada, the night view from Mount Rokkō spread out below like embers. Behind the ridge lies Arima Onsen, among Japan's oldest hot springs, its gold and silver waters praised since antiquity. And there is, of course, the beef: marbled, scarce, and served with proper ceremony rather than fanfare.

From Tokyo, the Nozomi shinkansen reaches Shin-Kōbe in around two hours and forty-five minutes, gliding past Mount Fuji en route; your FFGR chauffeur waits at the station exit, white-gloved, to take your cases. Those already in Kansai will find Kobe scarcely thirty minutes from Osaka by the Hanshin Expressway, the Lexus LM moving quietly along the waterfront. For a fuller day, we suggest the coastal road with a pause at Maiko, where the great Akashi Kaikyō Bridge strides out across the strait. The car remains with you throughout your stay — Arima, the Nada breweries, and the mountaintop are all within unhurried reach.

Dine at Misono, where teppanyaki was born in 1945, or entrust the evening to one of Kitano's discreet kappō counters. Sleep in the city, or better, over the mountain at Arima Onsen, where Tocen Goshobo, a ryokan of genuine antiquity, keeps its kinsen baths the colour of rust and amber. Spring brings cherry blossom to the Shukugawa river nearby; November sets the Rokkō slopes alight; in deepest winter the Kobe Luminarie threads the old settlement with light. Whatever the season, end one evening at the upper station of the Nunobiki Herb Gardens, the port glittering below. Kobe does not raise its voice. Neither do we.