Sendai: what to see, where to stay and how to get around

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Sendai did not grow; it was founded, by one man. Date Masamune, the warlord who lost an eye to smallpox as a child and was called the one-eyed dragon, moved his capital here in 1600 and laid out the town below a castle on Mount Aoba. This route follows him from the castle to his tomb and to the shrines he and his heirs built. A full day: the castle, the museum and Zuihoden are a walk apart, and the Loople sightseeing bus or a short taxi ride joins the shrines in the north.

The ten best sights in Sendai

1
Sendai Castle ruins
Only walls and the mounted statue of Masamune are left, but the view over the city is the best there is
2
Sendai City Museum
Masamune’s black armour and the papers of the embassy he sent to Rome
3
Zuihoden
Masamune’s mausoleum in a cedar forest; go in the morning, before the tour buses
4
Osaki Hachimangu
Black lacquer and gold from 1607, a National Treasure; on 14 January the city burns its New Year decorations here
5
Sendai Toshogu
The shrine the Date built for the shogun, and where locals come in quiet
6
Rinnoji
A Date family temple with a pond garden and pagoda; come in June for the irises
7
Sendai Mediatheque
Toyo Ito’s glass library on thirteen steel tubes; free to walk in
8
Lu Xun’s lecture hall
The wooden classroom where China’s great writer studied medicine
9
Sendai 3.11 Memorial Community Center
Start the coast here: maps and voices from 2011, at the end of the Tozai subway line
10
Arahama Elementary School
The school whose roof saved hundreds in the tsunami, kept as it was left

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Tours in Sendai →

A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Sendai:

Free walking tours in Sendai

The one-eyed dragon’s city

The castle hill · Sendai Castle never had a keep: Masamune built a palace and walls on the cliff over the Hirose River and relied on the drop. Nothing of the buildings survived; the mounted statue of him that stands here now replaced an earlier one that was melted down for metal in the Second World War.
Sendai City Museum · In 1613 Masamune sent his retainer Hasekura Tsunenaga across the Pacific to Mexico and on to Spain and Rome, where he met Pope Paul V. The documents and the portrait he brought back are kept here and are a National Treasure; by the time he returned, Japan had banned Christianity and his mission came to nothing.
Zuihoden · Masamune died in 1636 and asked to be buried on this hill; his son built the gilded mausoleum the next year. It burned in the American air raid on Sendai in July 1945, and what you see is the reconstruction completed in 1979, after archaeologists had opened the tomb and found his remains.
Osaki Hachimangu · Masamune built this shrine in 1607 in black lacquer, gold and colour, and it is one of the few buildings of his age in Sendai that survived the war; it is a National Treasure. On the night of 14 January the city brings its New Year decorations to be burned in a huge bonfire here, and men walk to it half naked in the snow.
Sendai Toshogu · The second Date lord, Tadamune, finished this shrine to Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1654 — a loyalty gesture to the shogunate that his father had always kept at arm’s length. Its main hall, Chinese gate and stone torii came through the war intact and are Important Cultural Properties.
Rinnoji · Date Mochimune, the eleventh head of the family, founded this temple in 1441 in the clan’s old lands to the south, and it followed the Date when Masamune moved them to Sendai. Its pond garden, with a three-storey pagoda over the water, is at its best in June, when the irises flower.

The city under the trees

The bombing of July 1945 burned most of central Sendai, and the city that came back was planned around broad avenues of zelkova trees and long covered arcades. This route goes from the market by the station through the arcades and the postwar alleys to the avenue and the glass library at its end. Two hours, flat and mostly under a roof, so it is the route for a rainy day; in early August the arcades are hung with the paper streamers of Tanabata.

Sendai Asaichi · The market began as a black market on the burned ground by the station after the air raid of 10 July 1945. It is still a few narrow lanes of family stalls, and it opens early and starts closing in the late afternoon.
Clis Road · This is where Sendai Tanabata hangs, from 6 to 8 August: giant paper streamers above the arcades. Each display carries seven traditional ornaments, each with a meaning — a paper kimono for sewing, folded cranes for long life, a paper fishing net for a good catch.
Iroha Yokocho · A double lane of tiny bars, noodle counters and old shops that grew out of the postwar years. Its name is written with the numerals one, two, three, but read iroha — the first three syllables of the old Japanese alphabet poem.
Kokubuncho · The largest night district in the whole of north-east Japan, a grid of narrow streets packed with bars stacked floor over floor. It takes its name from the Kokubun clan, who held this land before the Date came.
Jozenji-dori · Four rows of zelkova trees make this avenue a green tunnel in summer, and in December they carry the hundreds of thousands of lights of the Pageant of Starlight. The name comes from Jozenji, a temple that stood at its end in the days of the Date lords.
Sendai Mediatheque · Toyo Ito’s building, opened in 2001, has no ordinary columns: thirteen twisting tubes of steel lattice carry the floors and also hold the stairs, the lifts and the cables. Look up from the ground floor and you can see right through them; Ito won the Pritzker Prize in 2013.

The bay Basho could not describe

Matsushima is a bay of pine-covered islands forty minutes from Sendai, ranked as one of the three great views of Japan since the seventeenth century. The poet Basho came in 1689 and wrote that he could not find words for it. This route walks the waterfront from the station to the Date temples and out across the long red bridge. Three hours, flat; go on a weekday morning, and leave time for grilled oysters in winter.

Matsushima-Kaigan · In 1643 the scholar Hayashi Gaho listed Matsushima with Amanohashidate and Miyajima as the three great views of Japan, and the list has stuck ever since. In March 2011 the islands broke the force of the tsunami, and the town was hit far less than the open coast around it.
Zuiganji · Masamune rebuilt this temple between 1604 and 1609 as the family temple of the Date, bringing timber from Kumano; its main hall is a National Treasure. Along the approach, monks carved caves into the soft rock for meditation and for the ashes of the dead.
Entsuin · This is the mausoleum of Masamune’s grandson Mitsumune, who died at nineteen. Inside, the shrine is painted with roses and other Western motifs, rare in the Japan of the time, and often linked to Hasekura’s voyage to Rome; the temple is called the rose temple for it.
Kanrantei · By tradition this tea house was a gift from Toyotomi Hideyoshi to Masamune, taken down at Fushimi Castle and rebuilt here on the shore. You can still sit on its veranda over a bowl of matcha and look out at the bay.
Godaido · Masamune rebuilt this little hall on its rock in 1604. The bridges to it have gaps between the planks, so that you look down at the sea and walk with care; the statues inside are shown only once every thirty-three years.
Fukuurajima · A red bridge of about 250 metres leads to an island covered with pine woods and a botanical walk, for a small toll. From its far side you see the islands of the bay the way the boats do, without the boat.

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Getting to Sendai and getting around

Sendai Airport · The Airport Access Line runs straight to Sendai Station in under half an hour
Sendai Station · The Hayabusa shinkansen reaches Tokyo in about ninety minutes
West Exit bus pool · The Loople sightseeing loop and the buses to Akiu leave from here
Matsushima-Kaigan Station · About forty minutes on the Senseki line from Sendai; sit on the right for the bay

Cheap eats in Sendai

Sendai’s own dish is gyutan, beef tongue cut thick, salted and grilled over charcoal, served with barley rice and oxtail soup; the city dates it to 1948, when a restaurateur named Sano Keishiro started grilling tongue. Zunda is the local sweet, a bright green paste of crushed young soybeans, on rice cakes or blended into a milkshake. Sasakamaboko is fish paste pressed into the shape of a bamboo leaf, after the bamboo of the Date crest, and grilled. The coast adds oysters, scallops and the region’s raw-fish bowls. Most counter food here costs a few hundred yen.

Sendai Station · Zunda shake at the station, a few hundred yen
Clis Road · Hyotan-age, fried fish cake on a stick, a few hundred yen
Sendai Asaichi · Croquettes and grilled fish from the stalls, from about a hundred yen
Iroha Yokocho · Standing bars and yakitori skewers, a few hundred yen each
Yuriage Morning Market · Grilled scallops and fish soup at the Sunday market, a few hundred yen
Shiogama fish market · A raw-fish bowl you fill yourself: rice for a few hundred yen, then pay per topping
Matsushima-Kaigan · Grilled oysters by the pier in winter, a few hundred yen

Museums in Sendai

Sendai’s museums tell three stories: the Date lords who founded it, the twentieth-century architecture that rebuilt it, and the tsunami of March 2011.

Sendai City Museum · Masamune’s armour and the Rome embassy
Arahama Elementary School · The school kept as the tsunami left it
3.11 Memorial Community Center · Start the coast here
Miyagi Museum of Art · The Sato Churyo sculpture wing
Lu Xun’s lecture hall · Where China’s great writer studied medicine

Holy places in Sendai

The Date lords spent lavishly on shrines and temples, and the region around Sendai holds some of the most striking sacred places in northern Japan, from lacquered halls to a temple on a cliff.

Osaki Hachimangu · Dontosai, the fire festival of 14 January
Yamadera · The temple of the cicadas
Zuiganji · The Date temple in Matsushima
Shiogama Shrine · The great shrine above the port
Sendai Daikannon · A hundred-metre Kannon

Nature and day trips near Sendai

Sendai calls itself the city of trees, and the mountains begin twenty minutes west of the station: gorges, hot springs and the great waterfall of Akiu. Autumn colour comes in late October and November.

Akiu Great Falls · Fifty-five metres of water
Akiu Onsen · The hot springs of the Date lords
Fukuurajima · Pine woods across the red bridge
Nishi Park · Cherry trees over the Hirose River

Things to do in Sendai with kids

With children, Sendai has an aquarium of the northern sea by the port, a zoo on a hill, and the baseball of the Rakuten Eagles from spring to autumn.

Umino-Mori Aquarium · The sea of the Sanriku coast, by the port
Yagiyama Zoological Park · A zoo on the hill, reached by the Tozai subway
Anpanman Children’s Museum · The bread-headed hero, for small children

Nightlife in Sendai

Sendai goes out in Kokubuncho, the largest night district in north-east Japan, and in the old alleys near the arcades; the local drink is sake from Miyagi’s many breweries, and whisky from the Nikka distillery in the hills.

Kokubuncho · Bars stacked floor over floor
Iroha Yokocho · Tiny bars in a postwar alley
Nikka Miyagikyo Distillery · Whisky in the valley Taketsuru chose

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Frequently asked questions about Sendai

What is there to see in Sendai?

The top sights in Sendai are Sendai Castle ruins, Sendai City Museum and Zuihoden. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.

How many days do you need in Sendai?

Three to four days are enough to see the best of Sendai without rushing, including at least one walking tour.

Is there a free walking tour in Sendai?

Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Sendai, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: The one-eyed dragon’s city.

How do you get to Sendai and get around?

The main ways are Sendai Airport, Sendai Station and West Exit bus pool. Full details are in the transport section on this page.

Where to stay in Sendai, and for how much?

sleepntrip shows only rooms in Sendai that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.

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