Venus Fort ヴィーナスフォート

Venus Fort Tokyo

Venus Fort is Tokyo's answer to the European Renaissance. The boxy exterior of this three-floor shopping, dining and entertainment complex belies a vast, airy, grandiose and elaborately ornate interior, replete with Italianesque statuary, architecture, painting, and scenery. And, of course, as much shopping as you can handle, much of it duty-free for tourists.

The most omnipresent visual in the time-warp that is Venus Fort is its lofty "sky" above, a constantly morphing play of Old Master ethereal blues and sunset pinks on a domed ceiling. The play of clouds and various flavors of light takes place over a repeating one-hour cycle.

There are several other stunning features throughout Venus Fort in the form of historical - and histrionic - follies that will take your breath away.

Fountain Plaza is the star of the Venus Fort show: a towering high roofed plaza beset with a circle of stone columns, and focused on a giant fountain borne aloft by six lissome Greco-Roman goddesses in the middle of a classically tiled sunflower-pattern floor.

Venus Grand is on the second floor and, as the name implies, is the most awe-inspiring floor in its design, featuring Broad Avenue that takes you from the spectacular Fountain Plaza, to the Olive Plaza with its real olive trees, to the breathtaking Church Plaza. From Olive Plaza you can go to the nearby History Garage automobile museum in the nearby MegaWeb Toyota City Showcase. Shops include Tokyo's biggest Lego store, jewelry stores, restaurants and a lot of fashion stores. Near the 2F information area is a replica of the Mouth of Truth in Rome, where you put your hand in and make a wish.

Venus Outlet is on the third floor and offers a mix of youth fashion brand goods for affordable outlet prices, a Hobby Street section, watch and glasses stores, and a Dining Court with a range of cuisines available. There is also the convenient Ginoito clothing alteration service, open 11 am to 8 pm, which offers on-the-day alterations of clothing you bought that might need a little extra work for the perfect fit.

Lockers

There are coin lockers where you can store personal belongings that you won't need while shopping - on all three floors of Venus Fort.

• First floor lockers: outside and near the Nitori home furnishing & interior shop
• Second floor lockers: near Zara and near the ATMs for Shinsei Bank and Seven Bank
• Third floor lockers: near elevator no.4.