Photo: Andrea Schaffer from Sydney, Australia (CC BY 2.0)
A self-guided audio walk through the teahouse districts and temple quarter across the Asano River from Kanazawa Castle. It starts at the birthplace of the writer Izumi Kyoka and follows the riverside teahouses of Kazuemachi, one of the city's three geisha districts, over the Nakanohashi and the Asanogawa Ohashi of 1922. In Higashi Chaya, established by the Kaga domain in 1820 to gather the teahouses outside the castle town, it visits the Shima Teahouse and Kaikaro, both of 1820, and the Yasue Gold Leaf Museum in a district known for gold leaf since the early nineteenth century. It then climbs into the Utatsuyama temple quarter, organised from around 1616 to guard the town's approach, to Utatsu Shrine of 1599 and Jukyo-ji, where seven stone Jizo remember men who died after the rice-price protest of 1858. It ends back at the river by the Tokuda Shusei Memorial Museum and the Umenohashi bridge.
13 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 54 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 10 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Izumi Kyoka Memorial Museum, Kazuemachi, Nakanohashi.
Asanogawa Ohashi, Higashi Chaya District, Shima Teahouse, Kaikaro, Kanazawa Yasue Gold Leaf Museum, Utatsuyama Temple Quarter.
Utatsu Shrine, Jukyo-ji, Tokuda Shusei Memorial Museum, Umenohashi.
A riverside geisha district of two-storey wooden teahouses with red lattice fronts, reached by stone slopes such as the Dark Slope.
The teahouse quarter the Kaga domain set up in 1820, its wooden lattices giving privacy while letting those inside see the street.
A geisha teahouse built in 1820, with bengara-red earthen walls and rooms that show instruments and beauty accessories when open.
An 1820 teahouse whose vermilion-lacquered staircase rises straight from the entrance to the banquet rooms where geiko still perform.
Founded in 1599 for Maeda Toshiie, with a healing well at the back and life-sized ninja dolls hidden around the precinct.
Seven stone Jizo holding rice plants, remembering seven men who died after the 1858 rice-price protest by about two thousand townspeople.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 13 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 13 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Kanazawa — Higashi Chaya, Kazuemachi and the Temples of Utatsuyama, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
13 narration points, including Izumi Kyoka Memorial Museum, Kazuemachi, Nakanohashi, Asanogawa Ohashi and Higashi Chaya District. That is about 19 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 13 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.