Himeji Castle Tour from Kobe

We opted for our small group (8) excursion rather than the ship's offerings. Kaoru Tomoyoshi was our guide for our trip to visit the world heritage site of Himeji Castle from our cruise port of Kobe. She met us at the train station very close to the ship terminal. We took the Portliner line two stops to Sannomiya Station where we changed lines to Himeji. The castle was beautiful to photograph and very interesting to visit. Karou provided lots of interesting background on the history of the castle and the construction. There are a lot of steps to climb so you have to be in good shape to do it. She then took us to the very nice Koko-en garden nearby. Afterwards Karou had reserved a very special multi-course Japanese meal for us at a local restaurant where we had a private dining room. It was an excellent excursion! The only thing that could have made the day better is to have made it for the cherry blossoms but, they came early this year and we missed most of them.