Tokyo / Marunouchi & Tokyo Station / Street
Marunouchi Naka-dori
丸の内仲通り まるのうちなかどおり
The plane-tree avenue that Tokyo's businesspeople walk at lunchtime — sculpture, shopfronts and the calmest pavements in the city.
Worth itWalkable · Free · Art · Food · Shopping
The avenue runs parallel to the palace for a kilometre and a half, from Otemachi to Yurakucho, and it was widened and planted expressly so that the district would have somewhere to walk. Sculpture from the Mitsubishi collection stands on the pavements, the ground floors are cafés and the quieter international labels, and in the middle of the day the road closes and tables are set out under the trees. In December the trees are lit in champagne gold from one end to the other. At the Yurakucho end it becomes the brick arches under the railway, where the old-style izakaya are.
Don't miss
- The lunchtime road closure, when the avenue becomes an open-air canteen
- Outdoor sculpture — a changing loan show along the pavement
- The December illumination, understated by Tokyo standards and better for it
- Tip
- Walk it south from Otemachi at about 12:30 and you will be carried along by the whole district going to lunch.
- Best time
- Weekday lunchtime; December evenings.
- Allow
- 40 min
- Station
- Tokyo or Otemachi, any exit on the palace side
- Official site — hours, prices, closures
- www.marunouchi.com · Map
Appears in
In this area: Marunouchi & Tokyo Station
Tokyo Station Marunouchi Building東京駅丸の内駅舎
The 1914 red-brick station, its domes restored, with a gallery, a hotel and a city of food underneath.
45 min · Tokyo (JR / Shinkansen / Marunouchi line)
Imperial Palace East Gardens皇居東御苑
The site of Edo Castle — the great keep's stone base, the moats, and a garden open free to anyone who walks in.
90 min · Otemachi (five subway lines), exit C13a, straight to the Otemon gate
Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum三菱一号館美術館
Marunouchi's first office building of 1894, rebuilt brick by brick as a museum of nineteenth-century art.
75 min · Tokyo (Marunouchi south exit) or Nijubashimae (Chiyoda line)