The Imperial Palace is a castle you walk around rather than into — the moats and the pines and the great empty plaza are the walk, and the absence at the centre is the point. Three and a half kilometres around the green heart of Tokyo, best in the morning before the gravel turns to glare.
Start on Kokyo Gaien, the outer plaza, the black pines clipped and spaced across the gravel. Cross to the rail above the moat for Nijubashi, the double bridge with the turret behind it — the one view the city sells of itself. Then north along the water to Otemon, the gate into the East Gardens. They're free, and they're where the walk turns from monument to garden.
Through the Ninomaru and up to the Honmaru lawn, where the stone foundations of the old keep still sit — the tower burned in 1657 and was never replaced, so you climb to an empty platform and imagine the rest. Carry on through Kitanomaru Park, woods where the castle used to be, the Budokan's roof through the trees.
End at Chidorigafuchi, the northwest moat, boats on the water in season. Takebashi station is a few minutes down the bank.
