Contents
Himeji Castle | Introduction
Himeji CastleThe castle was founded in 1333 A.D. and has a long history. It was built near the end of the Kamakura Shogunate, and it was first built as a fortress by Morimura Akamatsu, a general of the Kamakura period, on his way to attack Kyoto, and then in 1346 by the fourth generation of the Akamatsu family, Jung-fan Akamatsu. Later on, the castle changed ownership, belonging to the Kuroda family, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Ikeda family... The miraculous thing is that Himeji Castle has remained undamaged through more than 700 years of changes of dynasties and even the Second World War, making it Japan's first registered World Heritage Site.
Himeji Castle | Transportation
In terms of transportation, I departed from Osaka this time, and I had a private railway Hanshin 2-Day Pass and a Sannomiya Himeji Single-Day Pass from Sanyo, so I was able to cover the next two days of my trip.
After Himeji Station, you can take a shuttle bus or walk for 15 minutes to Himeji Castle. Himeji Castle, along with Kumamoto Castle and Matsumoto Castle, is one of the three most famous castles in the world. The white Himeji Castle stands on Mount Himeji and can be seen from a distance.
Himeji Castle | Scenery
Outer City Wall | Sakuramon Bridge | Otemon Gate
Passing through the Sakuramon Bridge and the large hand gate in front of it, you enter the area inside the outer city wall.
After entering Otemon Gate, there is a large square, which should be very beautiful during the cherry blossom season. When I visited the Imperial Residence in Tokyo, I heard that there is a large piece of yellow land in front of Japanese castles for the purpose of defense, because horses would turn up the yellow sand when they pass by, so that people on the castle could easily see it and have time to prepare for it.
I went to the visitor center next to the tour to collect some information, and it just so happened that there was an English tour going out, so I joined it. There was a tour guide explaining the tour all the way, and the tour group was a group of tourists from Italy, so they asked a lot more questions than ordinary tourists, and in fact, they learned a lot of things.
Himeji is one of the most famous cities in Japan, and there are two main attractions, Tenshukaku and Ninomaru. This is the first gate to enter the city, and from here you can see that the road in front of each gate has a curve, and it is narrower than the gate of Tenshoukaku, which is also for defense purposes.
Tenshoukaku
After passing through many gates that are particularly narrow, it takes at least two hours to enter Tenshukaku because of the large number of tourists who have to queue up and climb up the hill to get to the gate. Therefore, it is better to prepare for more than half a day to visit Himeji, because by the time you get to the center, there will be a queue of people already.
Himeji Castle has been expanded over the years, and there are many things to see on the walls. The most obvious is the defense function, we can see many archery holes along the way.
Another point worth observing is the family crest on the door. As I mentioned earlier, Himeji Castle has changed hands many times in its history. The first owners were the Akamatsu family, but later the Akamatsu family was involved in a civil war and Nobunaga Oda was involved, so Himeji Castle came under the ownership of the Kuroda family, which operated the castle for many generations and went through a number of wars and restorations in the meantime. After a dozen generations, the Kuroda family gave the castle to Hideyoshi Toyoda, who lived in Himeji before moving to Osaka and expanded Himeji Castle. After the Battle of Sekigahara, Himeji Castle was transferred to the Ikeda family and fortified, and then to the Honda family. Until the castle was nationalized, each owner maintained and expanded the castle, so when you look at the gates, you can see the family crests that were engraved on the castle when it was built.
When you enter Tenshou Mansion, the route inside is very clear, just follow the route, there are six floors. When you enter Tenshoukaku, you need to take off your shoes, everyone will take a bag with their shoes in it. When you climb the stairs inside, you may be slippery if you wear socks, so be careful with your footsteps.
Tenshokaku is mainly supported by two pillars, the East Pillar and the West Pillar, which are 24.6 meters long.
The six-leaf hidden nails and the latticework are unique to Tenshokaku, and the six-leaf hidden nails are used to decorate the nail heads.
Great sky guards looking out to a very good view.
The structure of the entire Tenshokaku is shown here, with a total of five floors above ground.
There is a Kiku's Well outside. This well is the place where the famous ghost story "Kiku of Petrayashiki" was killed and her body was dumped, so if you are interested, you can check it out. The reason why Kiku was killed in this story was because her favorite retainer, Banshiro, found out that she was an undercover agent and threatened to marry Kiku, but failed to do so, and then he framed her for the loss of one of the Aoyama's family heirloom plates. So the legend says that she was counting the plates at the bottom of the well.
After that, we can go down the mountain. Tenshoukaku is really beautiful and deserves to be called the No.1 city in Japan.
Ninomaru
Ninomaru consists of a beautiful garden on the west side of Tenshukaku, and displays inside the building tell the story of Chihime. Chihime was the granddaughter of Tokugawa Ieyasu and was married at the age of seven to Toyotomi Hideyori, the son of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. When Toyotomi Hideyori committed suicide, Chihime married Honda Tadakatsu and moved with him to Himeji, where they had two children. However, the happy life did not last long, but the eldest son died at the age of four, and five years later, Honda Tadakatsu passed away, and Chihime became a nun and left Himeji Castle.
It took about half a day to leave Himeji Castle.
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