1 / 7Motomachi & the churchesPhoto: くろふね / CC BY 4.0
Tap a photo to see it large. 7 photographs, every one credited.
Checked against official sources · updated · Takumi Yamada
Russian domes, a British consulate and slope-top views down every street — the port that opened Japan first still looks the part. Wear the comfortable shoes.
- Our number 2 for Hakodate, out of ten. It is the first thing we would spend the hours on.
- Reachable on foot from the berth, so no timetable can strand you.
- Free streets; halls ¥300 each to visit — public hall + consulate ticket ¥500; church ¥200 donation.
- On a 4–6h ashore call our verdict is "The plan" — our slopes plan: churches, public hall, lucky pierrot lunch, warehouses home.
- Streets always; halls from 9:00 — apr–oct to 18:00–19:00, nov–mar to 17:00; church mon–fri 10–17, sat 10–16, sun 13–16.
- 2 hr 30 min door to door needs a 4.5-hour call: a 2–3 hour stop cannot hold it. Pick something closer instead.
- It is a view, so it is weather. Check the morning sky before you commit the hours.
Why Motomachi & the churches is famous
Why this city looks like nowhere else in the country
Hakodate was one of the first two Japanese ports opened to foreign ships in 1854, and the consulates, churches and trading houses went up this slope. Within a few hundred metres you pass a Russian Orthodox church, an Anglican one and a Catholic one, which is a fair summary of what the treaty era did to this town.
Japan opened two ports to the world in 1854, and this was one of them — not for trade, but as a filling station for American whalers. Everything the city looks like today follows from that, and from three catastrophic fires.
When the 1854 Treaty of Kanagawa opened Japan, Hakodate was one of the first two ports named (trade followed in 1859) — and Motomachi is what that opening built: a Russian Orthodox church with candy-dome spires, a British consulate rose garden, a colonial-yellow Public Hall with a ballroom, all stacked on slopes that aim straight down at the harbor.
The genius of the district is the grid: every uphill street ends in sky, every downhill one ends in sea. Hachiman-zaka — the postcard slope — frames your own ship at its foot. Golden hour turns the whole hillside amber, which is precisely when late-sailing passengers should be standing on it.
In the Ainu village of Usukeshi. The name Hakodate follows
Japan opens two ports: Shimoda and Hakodate
American, then Russian, then British
Consecrated in October; St. Nikolai arrives the next year
Motomachi's slopes hold the whole story within a fifteen-minute walk. Guided port walks add the fires and the consuls, which the plaques mostly leave out.
Things worth knowing
- Wear the comfortable shoes: the district is one long staircase disguised as a neighborhood.
- Hachiman-zaka at the top, camera level with the street — the harbor-and-ship shot composes itself.
- The Old Public Hall rents Meiji-era dresses and suits for balcony photos — silly and perfect.
- The Russian church rings services some mornings; pause — the bells were the sound of opening Japan.
- Kaikō開港 — "Port opening" — the 1854 event that starts modern Hakodate, and a word you will see everywhere here.
- Motomachi元町 — The foreign quarter on the slopes: consulates, churches, and the postcard streets.
Motomachi & the churches and your ship
Both pins on one map, so the distance is a fact rather than a feeling.
Questions people send us
How steep are the Motomachi slopes really?
Steady rather than brutal — think fifteen minutes of purposeful uphill to the church block. Trams and taxis reach the top streets if the grade worries you; walking down Hachiman-zaka is the reward either way.
Which Motomachi interiors are worth paying for?
The Old Public Hall (the ballroom and balcony) first; the Orthodox church accepts visitors outside services for a small donation. The streetscape itself — free — is the main exhibit.
Routes that already include it
Each one is a finished day timed from the official timetables, with this stop in it. Read the route rather than assembling it yourself.
What to put beside it
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
3 hr 30 min for bothSnaffle's & squid sweets
Cheese omelet cakes that dissolve on contact — Hakodate’s proudest confection, boxed for travel.
See the detail
3 hr 30 min for bothYakitori bento at Hasegawa
A local chain’s pork-skewer bento with a cult following — order at the counter, eat on the harbor wall.
See the detail
4 hr for bothKaisendon at the morning market
Uni, ikura and scallop over rice at 7 a.m., 300 metres (a 3-minute walk) from the Wakamatsu terminal (from Minato-cho, ship shuttle if one runs, or a taxi, about 20 min).
See the detail