Kobe Day Trip from Osaka: Kobe Beef Without the Tourist Markup, Kitano, the Harbour, Nada Sake, and Arima Onsen

Three railways run Osaka to Kobe's Sannomiya station: Hanshin from Umeda or Namba, Hankyu from Umeda, JR from Osaka station. All take 20 to 30 minutes, JR is fastest, Hankyu is prettiest. Sannomiya is the centre; Kitano is a fifteen-minute walk uphill, the harbour twenty minutes downhill, and the Nada breweries three stops east on the Hanshin line. The Osaka day trips page compares Kobe with Nara and Kyoto.

Kobe beef is Tajima-breed wagyu from Hyogo that passes a strict grading (A4 or A5, marbling score 6 or above) and is certified by the Kobe Beef Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association; restaurants that serve it display a bronze statue and a certificate with the animal's number. Lunch is the way to eat it: a 100 to 150 gram steak set at a teppanyaki counter runs USD 40 to 80 at midday against double at dinner. Book the lunch slot; walk-ins at 12:00 queue. The cheaper kushikatsu, croquette and beef-bowl versions in Sannomiya use Kobe-labelled offcuts and are a fair way to taste it for USD 10 to 20.

Kitano's ijinkan, the hillside houses of the foreign merchants who settled after the port opened in 1868, are a pleasant hour with two or three interiors worth the small fees. The harbour at Meriken Park has the earthquake memorial (a preserved stretch of the quay left as the 1995 quake broke it), the red Port Tower and the maritime museum. Chinatown, Nankinmachi, is small and good for a snack. On a clear day the Shin-Kobe ropeway climbs to the Nunobiki herb garden with the city and bay below.

Nada, along the coast east of Sannomiya, is Japan's biggest sake-brewing district, with breweries such as Hakutsuru, Kiku-Masamune and Sawanotsuru running free museums and tastings within walking distance of Hanshin's Uozaki and Sumiyoshi stations. Hard water from the Rokko mountains gives Nada its dry, sharp style, the opposite of Kyoto's Fushimi. An hour and a half covers two museums and the walk between them.

Arima Onsen, Japan's oldest recorded hot spring town, is thirty minutes from Sannomiya by the Kobe Electric Railway or a bus, and forty minutes from Osaka's Umeda by direct highway bus. The two public baths, Kin no Yu (brown iron water) and Gin no Yu (clear), take walk-ins for a few hundred yen. Guided Kobe days from Osaka, USD 100 to 200 per person, usually pair a Kobe beef lunch with Kitano and the harbour, or with Arima; private car days let you add the Rokko cable car for the night view, which is rated one of Japan's three best.