Les meilleurs hôtels à Kobe

The world got to know all about Kobe in January 1995, when a massive earthquake twisted and leveled much of this thriving harbor city. Thousands were injured or killed and the city and nation, despite a full-speed reconstruction campaign, are struggling to pull it all back together. Many victims of the Hanshin-Awaji quake still live in temporary housing. But there is much more to Kobe than the abrupt violence of the earth beneath it. It's one of Japan's most international cities, where old Victorian mansions (built by western shipping traders) still sit on select streets and foreign students take classes at international schools. And the cuisine is as international as a visitor will find in Japan. This foreign flavor owes to Kobe's prized harbor, and the freighters that have come to it for centuries. One in five Kobe workers are employed in the related industries of Japan's busiest port. Sandwiched as it is between the sea and the Mt. Rokko range, space is at a premium in the capital of the Hyogo prefecture, with more and more work being done to reclaim land from the water. In fact, the new Kansai International Airport serving Kobe and nearby Osaka and Kyoto was all built on new ground and is best reached from Kobe by speedy hydrofoil.