A postcard from Toyama Castle, Japan

Toyama Castle - southern ramp

I've shot through Toyama city several times on the shinkansen, in a rush to get somewhere further west - Kanazawa for a training session or exploring the full extent of the Hokuriku line down to Tsugura, without getting off to explore. I also used to drive to Kanazawa for work, but again, always in a rush (or taking the scenice route through Gifu instead).

Dedicated effort this summer break to take a slow look around the castle & city centre!

I have to admit there's 'not a lot to the castle'...it was flattened/burnt to the ground towards the end of the war in 1945 (Aug 2nd). The grounds remain, with the basic outline of the domain but only one small, rebuilt tower on the south side.This reinforced concrete 'reconstruction', on the site of the Honmaru Kurogane-mon, was completed in 1954; there's a hint of a gateway that would have crossed the inner moat. It looks like the moat, as in many other castle cities, was filled-in & re-used as a tramway & or main road. The north side of the domain does feature a lovely river as part of the defences (even offering short river cruises under the cherry blossoms I assume), but again, as usual, post war corporate/local government construction within the larger grounds is incongruous. 

Toyama castle's extant moat

Nothing much has been done around the keep - a nice open park - but pretty hard to take a nice photo of the 'castle' without a hotel in the immediate background or a stupid clock in the foreground!

Lonely concrete keep

Unfortunately this castle lacks a wow factor - but I did instead fall for the trams...more about them in a post coming soon...cities with tram networks are really cool, in my opinion!

Full history here

The Witches of Pendle – after reading

Pendle Hill is well known, even now, as a “powerful” place. Write about a similar kind of place in your country.

I think Kanazawa city in Ishikawa prefecture is the most powerful place in Japan recently. It is because that Hokuriku-Shinkansen which is connected between Tokyo and Kanazawa was opened on March 14. Kanazawa city is the biggest city in Hokuriku area and one of the famous tourist sites, but it had taken about five hours to go there by trains from Tokyo so far. After Hokuriku-Shinkansen was opened, it takes only two and a half hours to go to Kanazawa from Tokyo at fastest. The most of the visitors to Kanazawa was from Hokuriku area or western Japan, but it is expected that the visitors from eastern Japan will also be increased.

Lantern in the Kenroku-en garden, Kanazawa (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Kanazawa city has been famous as a feudal Japanese castle town. The most famous spot is a garden called “Kenrokuen” which is one of the three major gardens in Japan. It is often touted as the Maeda clan’s greatest accomplishment in the seventeenth century. There are many other traditional spots related to Maeda clan in the city.

My parents said that they visited Kanazawa city when I was baby, but I don’t remember about it at all. I want to visit the city to see the beautiful scenery and eat the delicious sea food in near future.