Osaka Museum of History: A museum of history which makes you feel you are a part of history. It has a floor reproducing the great council hall of “Naniwanomiya palace”, a floor which takes you on a journey throughout the city of canals: Osaka in the medieval and modern era, and many more interesting floors!
The main gate of Osaka Castle which is an important cultural property. There are many spots you can't miss such as the stone wall made from gigantic stones a few times bigger than human beings!
Hokoku Shrine: This shrine is enshrined to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of the most famous military commanders in Japanese history. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who unified the country, once used Osaka Castle as his headquarters. Visit this shrine with a history associated wtih Osaka Castle.
MIRAIZA OSAKA-JO: A facility that was reopened in 2017 as a spot with restaurants and shops! It was originally built in 1931 and used as the Osaka City Museum. It is located in front of the castle tower and popular as a place to buy souvenirs and take a rest.
Here we are! The main attraction of this tour! They have an exhibition in the reconstructed castle and you can also take a look at the reproduced golden traditional tea ceremony room. Don’t forget to visit the observatory since the view is very beautiful and to visit a spot where you can wear costumes which samurai used to wear during a war.
We had five private tours in Japan and I can say that Kyoko Nakamura was the best guide among all. She is very knowledgeable about the history of Japan and spoke excellent English because of having lived in Seattle. After the tour she found us a nice place to have lunch and gave my daughter help in catching a taxi to another tourist destination.
My family and I had a great time learning about Osaka Castle and checking out the Osaka History Museum with our wonderful guide Kyoko. Kyoko was communicative and well-versed in her knowledge of Japanese history and culture. She even helped us get tickets online which saved time waiting in line. Thanks again for showing us around the castle and museum. Also, we all appreciated getting to know you, your family and your amazing country. Thanks again, Kyoko!
Kaori was very informative,knowledgeable and very helpful on our tour. We had a wonderful experience with her. She even made sure that we got back to our hotel safely.
I don’t think a guide is needed to visit Osaka Castle. The castle has a lot of exhibits and short that explain its history. While our guide was friendly and knowledgeable, he didn’t add much historical detail beyond what was already provided in the castle museum exhibits.
This was a trip where I had a personal guide called Kaori, who was local to the area so had a really good knowledge of Osaka, which we saw in the museum. The museum takes a look at Osaka through the ages and Kaori brought it to life for me. Afterwards we went to Osaka Castle which was beautiful especially when it is lit up at night. I learned so much more about it from Kaori than if I had gone on my own. All in all a really good afternoon with coffee and cake thrown in!
We had an amazing time with Kaori during our visit to Osaka Castle. She was incredibly kind, patient, and very informative — her English was impeccable, and to our surprise, she was also very proficient in Spanish! She shared so much knowledge about the castle and Japanese culture, making the tour both educational and enjoyable. When my camera strap broke, she personally walked us to find a new one and made sure everything was taken care of before continuing. Kaori even joined us for lunch at a wonderful local restaurant she recommended, making the experience feel warm and personal. Afterward, she walked with us toward the metro, helped us navigate the trains, and pointed out great stores to visit along the way. She truly went above and beyond, and her kindness made our day unforgettable. Thank you so much, Kaori! Adiós con mucho cariño, David y Lissette — esperamos verte pronto. 本当にありがとうございました！(Hontō ni arigatō gozaimashita! — “Thank you very much from the bottom of our hearts.”
Yoshi San is a nice , friendly & polite guide. We enjoyed the Osaka museum & Osaka Castle on a hot day. Thank you. Arigato! 🙏🏼
Couldn't understand the tour guide, his English was not understandable, his name was Masami. I have done many tours and did not have to pay for entries of the tour it was included as part of the tour. We had to pay for the entry to the Museum and entry to the Castle which was not worth it, since it wasn't a real castle. So I paid $177.06 for a tour guide which was not worth the money!!!!! SO DISAPPOINTED!!!!!
I had a wonderful tour with Kaori. She was very knowledgeable about the Osaka Castle and the history of Japan. She was fun to talk with, allowing me to learn more about the wonderful people of Japan. I highly recommend her and this tour.
This was an amazing tour and for us ( a family of 3) this was a lot of new interesting information learnt about the history and culture of the city of Osaka, all condensed into a short and sweet half day tour. Rose, our guide was excellent, with great communication skills and a lot of patience. She was also well equipped with the know how of the city and could answer every one of our questions :D
This is the part of Japan I want to experience. The history, the pageant, the samurai and the respect the Japanese people have for their history. The museum gives you a good summary, the castle gardens are lovely, and the castle outside and in is not to be missed. Our guide Kazuko brought it all together and answered any questions we asked and even led us back to our hotel after 4+ hours of walking. My only regret is I really should have dressed up as a samurai.
Lovely morning with Kokoro, she was very knowledgeable and pleasant. The Osaka castle is a must see. The history amazing and the views from the top spectacular.
Kokoro was a delightful guide. Very knowledgeable and accommodating. Highly recommend her as guide. The tour itself was informative. The views from the top of the castle well worth the 250 stairs.
Kei was a delight - sharing both his knowledge of the sights and. Personal insights on life in Japan. Within 4 hours he became a friend and we invited him to visit us when he comes to the US.
Fuji was an excellent guide. very knowledgeable and an excellent communicator. Did a good job of showing historic and cultural sites.
Joey was an excellent guide! He was friendly, engaging, knowledgeable, and worldy. He gave us time and space to do our own thing at each location. The crowds were a little too much for us at the castle portion, so he also offered alternative places to see around the castle without deviating from the tour. Time and money well spent.
Although I understood the tour did not include a ticket to enter Osaka Castle, I thought Otomo's tour guide would purchase a ticket for me, enabling me to bypass the hour-long wait in the ticket line, as I've experienced in Europe. Still, the guide patiently stood in the ticket line with me, and accompanied me throughout the tour of the very crowded castle interior. The only other criticism I have is that the guide was a bit hard to understand I English. To his credit, though, Japanese is his native language and he's learned to conduct tours in English, Russian, and Spanish.
Shame on you, Viator. This was the most boring experience we had. We did not need a tour guide to help us buy tickets to a tour we had to read through everything.
Our guide was very pleasant and, I'm sure, tried his very best. He certainly had an understanding of English. However my family could not understand 90% of what he was trying to say. We enjoyed the tour regardless, however there were some significant misunderstandings and we surely could have gotten a lot more out of it with the right individual guiding us.
A highly recommended tour with Kate as your guide. Kate was able to tell every single part of the experience and was great with children and her knowledge and enthusiasm for Osaka and its greatest monuments. We even got a special treat in the end. , our tour with Kate exceeded all our expectations. Thank you, Kate!!
Enjoyed the tour of Osaka Museum of History and the Castle. Beautifully explained by our tour guide Rose. She speaks good English
Ito-san was extremely helpful and kind towards us, and went out of his way to guide us. He was also very passionate about the history of ancient Japan.
I toured the Osaka museum and castle with KEI who was very knowledgeable of the local history and the Japanese history of all families, battles, building design and trade. He was able to interpret the Japanese culture, relating the differences and how they came to be to current western culture. I got so much more out of both of these venues going with KEI providing the back ground and significance compared to walking through these on my own. Highly recommend both the tour and KEI as your tour guide.
Had a fantastic time with my guide Joey Yonou! He was very knowledgeable about several topics of interest and my visit was greatly enhanced by his profound wisdom on Osaka Castle and it's history.
Very well tour. I would highly recommend Masa as your tour guide. He is very good at his job and will make your experience worth the trip.
My tour guide, Masa, was a really great tour guide on the tour. He is very knowledgeable about the history or Osaka and the origins of how Osaka came to be and into today’s modern world. I would highly recommend Masa as your tour guide. Osaka Museum and the Osaka castle tour is a must! Learned so much on this tour.
Our guide Rose was very informative. She was engaging with our young children and attentitive to our needs. Great tour!
My tour guide was Ma-chan, who did an excellent job. The museum inside Osaka Castle is not great when it comes to translations, often only translating the name of the item but not the story. She did a great job translating, explaining and expanding upon what both museums and the castle had to offer. The tour was a little expensive for what it was, which is a shame. Ma-Chan did an excellent job and deserves full recognition for it.
We had an amazing experience with our great tour guide, Kaori! She spoke excellent English and was very knowledgeable about both the museum and the castle. We would thoroughly recommend Kaori as your tour guide! Thank you.
Michi was an excellent and knowledgeable guide, and we had great fun exploring both the Osaka Museum of History and Osaka Castle. Overall, it was a great experience and tour. I was so happy I took the tour even after getting lost on the Osaka subway. I will definitely recommend Michi to anyone else who visits Osaka and wishes to see Osaka Castle.
We joined this tour guide because it was within our budget and provides a private group, perfect for family trip. We really enjoyed the tour guided by Kei who is really friendly to talk to and well knowledged when it comes to the details and history of the Osaka castle. Overall we think that this tour guide is worth the price and would definitely recommend others to join!
Our guide Kate was really nice. She was very knowledgeable about Osaka castle. It was a very hot day so she assisted us with where to buy tickets and how to see museum best way possible. She also assisted us with transfer information to help us get back to our hotel. She was very helpful.
Kei, our tour guide, was super caring and shared a lot of historical background of the two places we visited. He went out of his way to give us the best experience possible. The tour was supposed to end at 1:30 but in the end the tour ended at about 2:30 which allowed us to get the most for our buck. He was very friendly and sincere. We were able to learned a lot about Osaka/Japan and him as a person! 10/10 highly recommend:)
I had a fantastic time on my tour of Osaka Castle. My group tour guide was Kei, who was kind, well informed, and highlighted the best parts of both the Osaka history museum and Osaka Castle. My group is very interested in history, and Kei spent time with everyone making sure all our questions were answered. My group primarily speaks English, and we had no problem communicating with Kei. Kei also recommended a lunch place after the tour which had delicious food.
My wife and I took this tour of the Osaka museum and Castle. Our tour guide was Michi, and he was very informative about the history and culture of Osaka. He provided information that we never could have gotten from a museum - such as local customs and legends. Michi was very friendly and approachable for any questions we had. The tour was a great educational experience and we walked away from the tour with a greater connection to the city of Osaka.
Very friendly and helpful tour guide. He adapted to our needs based on weather and hydration needs and made sure we got where we needed to be after the tour.
I had booked a guided tour but a wrong month and their system is so cumbersome that it was not possible to go in and change or stop it, so wasted money, but the tour is surely very good
Rose was magnificent. She was vey knowledgeable and explained everything thoroughly. She even asked the castle staff to let me use their elevator due to my mobility problems.
Michi was a very friendly and helpful guide! He even shared his takoyaki with me and waited patiently while I took forever to shop for souvenirs!
I had booked a tour, but discovered that I had accidentally booked the wrong month. but i couldn't change it or cancel it, inside their website so it was wasted money. But I don't know if it's a good trip, I hope so
I can't say enough good things about Joey our tour guide. He was so accommodating when our infant needed breaks and even escorted us back to our starting station. He would grab bags and do anything necessary to make sure we had the best experience possible. His knowledge was great and attitude was even better. Thank you Joey!
My Tour Guide Joey has been an absolute pleasure to be with. He is extremely informative and helpful. We had great chats the entire time and he helped me out with souvenir shopping and also making me understand the history of all the places we visited together. We also went to another Shrine which is related to the history of Osaka Castle which was not a part of the itinerary. He even dropped me to my hotel. Hope I get to meet him on my next trip to Japan.
Really enjoyed the tour of the Osaka Museum and the Osaka Castle. It was nice to have the Osaka Castle ticket purchased at the museum so that we didn’t have to stand in a long line. Ma-Chan knew what we should see and how to do it efficiently.
Hiroko Ohashi was an amazing guide. She shared with us so much knowledge. She is really passionate about Osaka and it was really great to interact with her. She really felt like a friend. Through the museum tour she was able to recommend other activities for us to do and we went on to watch a Bunraku show after the tour! It was a really lovely experience and such good value for money
the "tour" was the worst experience, the "guide" had no sign, we could nto find him. after spending 45 minutes trying to meet up with him, we succeeded just to find "an English tour guide" who spoke almost no English and did not tell us anythin. We laerned more just from reading the information in the displays of the museum and the castle. I contatcted Viator about our awful experience and they said "it is not our issue, its the tour operator", which is completely unacceptable as they are the business customers are booking through, getting info through, etc. Almost $170 down the drain + a lot of stress
From the time of confirmation until the time we met our tour guide Rhe, we were made aware in detail on where to meet through the what we should expect.
Akiko was a amazing tour guide and her English was good! We learned a lot about the history of Osaka and the tour of the Osaka Castle was beautiful. She was kind of enough to take pictures of us and knew where to take good photos. I would highly recommend this tour!
Our guide met us at the Osaka History Museum and helped us understand the background to the castle and the role it played in the Shogunate history of Japan. Then, we went to the castle, which was huge and very impressive. Our guide was quite knowledgeable and answered all our questions to our expectations. He even took us to the Dotonbori area for an excellent katsu food experience.
Osaka Castle is huge, with a very convoluted history. We benefitted greatly from having a tour guide, but there is room for improvement. Our guide was very personable, but clearly not a history scholar and his English left many questions unanswered. (Note: This was an "English speaking tour.") He did his very best, but Otomo Travel obviously does not test their guides' language skills.
Michi was a great tour guide. He was flexible in finding me when I had trouble finding the meeting spot, knew all about history, and gave great insight into the museum and castle.
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