Nagasaki's harbour is a long, narrow inlet surrounded by steep hills, and on its western shore the Mitsubishi shipyard has been building ships since the late nineteenth century. The yard was one of the engines of Japan's rapid industrialisation in the Meiji era, when the country transformed itself from a feudal society into an industrial power in a few decades. Several of its historic structures are part of the UNESCO listing of the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution, inscribed in 2015. The Former Pattern Shop, a red-brick building from 1898 where wooden patterns were made for casting metal parts, now houses a museum of the yard's history. The Giant Cantilever Crane, installed in 1909 and made in Scotland, is still in working order, and it dominates the waterfront. The yard built many famous ships, including the battleship Musashi, one of the largest warships ever constructed.
The Scottish connection runs deep. Thomas Glover, a merchant from Aberdeen, arrived in Nagasaki in 1859 and played a key role in the industrialisation of Japan, helping to import machinery, establish the shipyard and develop coal mining. His house, the oldest Western-style wooden building in Japan, stands in the Glover Garden on the hill opposite, with views over the harbour.
Nagasaki is a city of layered history: the Portuguese traders and Jesuits of the sixteenth century, the Dutch trading post on the artificial island of Dejima during the centuries of Japanese isolation, the Chinese community with its temples and lantern festival, and the atomic bomb of 9 August 1945, commemorated in the Peace Park and the Atomic Bomb Museum. Offshore, the abandoned coal mining island of Hashima, Gunkanjima, the battleship island, can be visited by boat.
Riding in Nagasaki is challenging. The streets are narrow, steep and crowded, with trams running through the centre, and parking is difficult. Outside the city, the coastal roads of the Nagasaki peninsula, south towards Nomozaki and west towards Sotome, are lovely, with sea views, tight bends and little traffic.
The city has fuel, garages and every service. Try champon, a hearty noodle soup with seafood and vegetables, and castella, a sponge cake introduced by the Portuguese. The night view from Mount Inasa is one of the finest in Japan.