What Hiroshima made me feel (and why you should go)

Of all the stops on the trip, Hiroshima was the most emotionally different. It isn't a day of beautiful temples or spectacular food front and center — it's a day of hard history, and that's exactly why I think it's one of the most important stops on the whole route.

We arrived by shinkansen from Osaka and went straight to the Peace Memorial Park and the museum. Walking through that park, knowing what happened there in 1945, completely changes the pace of the day. The museum is hard — I won't say otherwise — but it's the kind of place you feel should be visited with respect and with real time, without rushing.

What affected me most wasn't any single object or image, but the overall sense of being in a place that represents, at the same time, the worst that can happen and an entire city's capacity to rebuild itself. Hiroshima today is a living, ordinary city, with its own food culture.

"The contrast with what came right after, that same afternoon, was even stronger: from the emotional weight of the museum we went, in under an hour, to the almost magical calm of Miyajima."

If you're unsure whether it's worth including Hiroshima on your route because "it isn't the pretty part of the trip," my view is clear: that's exactly why you should go. Not every day of a trip has to be light to be important.