Just an hour and a half by train from Tokyo, the capital of the Aichi Prefecture, Nagoya is the fourth largest city in Japan. Here’s how to make the most of your time on a visit to Sydney’s sister city.

Visit Nagoya Castle

Originally built in 1615, Nagoya Castle was rebuilt in 1959 after WWII air raids and is currently undergoing another major reconstruction. It will be years before we’re able to go inside the castle keep again, but the good news is the castle’s Honmaru Palace reopened in 2018. Recreated by leading traditional artists, the luxurious rooms with decorated gold-covered walls are a beautiful sight to see.

Try Nagoya meshi dishes

The cultural cuisine of Nagoya’s Aichi Prefecture, Nagoya meshi dishes include miso-katsu (deep fried pork cutlets in rich miso sauce), hitsumabushi (grilled eel on rice with a thick sticky sauce) and tebasaki (spicy fried chicken wings). The Kinshachi Yokocho area, near the castle, is a top place to find these and more in Japanese-style wooden houses. It’s here at Misokatsu Yabaton that I watch their traditional red miso sauce that’s been boiled with pork and other ingredients for hours being poured over my cutlets before I enjoy that delicious depth of flavour. Picture: Amanda Woods.

Go up the Mirai Tower

Four years before the Tokyo Tower, the Chubu Electric Power Mirai Tower became the first steel broadcasting tower in Japan when it opened in 1954. These days you can take in 360-degree views of the city and look out to mountain ranges, including Mt Ontake and Mt Hakusan, from the Sky Deck and Sky Balcony, 100m up in the sky.

Stay in the world’s first TV tower hotel

Sleep in style in the Mirai Tower in the Tower Hotel Nagoya. A member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, this unusual hotel has steel tower frames in bedrooms and features work by local artists, including Yoshitomo Nara. Some of my favourite Tower Hotel moments are hidden behind bookcases, including exclusive after-hours access to the Sky Deck and Sky Balcony via a secret elevator and my ‘memorable breakfast’ sharing local culinary traditions in Japanese stacked boxes in Restaurant Glycine. Rooms with breakfast start from $595 a night or $583 for SLH Club members.

See one of the world’s biggest planetarium shows

The shows may all be in Japanese, but I still loved sitting back and staring up at the stars and planets under one of the world’s largest planetarium screens. The Nagoya City Science Museum is full of interactive displays and entry costs 800 yen ($8.20) for the museum and planetarium. Most exhibitions have no English translations, but while I needed Google Translate for some, others, like playing with a massive bubble film, need no explanation. Picture: Amanda Woods.

Visit a Toyota Museum or three

The city of Toyota, where the Japanese car was born, is less than an hour away from Nagoya, and car lovers have not one but three Toyota Museums in the area. Next door to Toyota’s headquarters, the Toyota Kaikan Museum is where you can see new models and technology. In central Nagoya, the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology celebrates "the spirit of being studious and creative” with a look through Toyota’s history, and the Toyota Automobile Museum has more than 150 cars from around the world, plus thousands of toy cars, posters and other items.

Walk around Spaceship Aqua

Nagoya’s transport hub Oasis21 has bus and train stations below and a spaceship-style glass roof 14m above where I happily strolled around as cosplay kids held photo shoots. It’s free to take a 200m walk around the reflective pond on Spaceship Aqua, which looks like a disco Star Trek ship when it lights up in different colours at night. Picture: Amanda Woods.

Have a cake moment at Harbs

The Nagoya cake shop that you can now find in New York City knows how to layer a cake. They have around 50 handmade cakes in their repertoire, and my huge pear mille-feuille is pear, sponge, cream and air perfection. At 930 yen a slice, it’s under $10 too, which feels like a bargain for a lovely sit and savour in a cake shop moment. Picture: Amanda Woods.

Hit the shops

From luxury department stores to fun flea markets, Nagoya has your shopping style covered. For second-hand finds and bargain buys, head to the Osu shopping streets, where they also hold antique markets on the 18th and 28th of the month. In the downtown Sakae area, you can ride the Sunshine Sakae Ferris wheel in between visits to international and Japanese stores. Your long list of department stores includes Takashimaya, with its incredible food hall, and my personal favourite, PARCO, where you can find a mix of interesting new designers plus vintage gems in the Top of the Hill Vintage store.

Have Google Translate and GO Taxi apps ready to roll

English isn’t widely spoken in Nagoya (so unless your Duolingo lessons are advanced), you’ll need to have Google Translate standing by. Downloading the GO Taxi app will also avoid confusion when telling your taxi driver where you’d like to go.

The writer travelled as a guest of Walk Japan and stayed as a guest of Small Luxury Hotels.