Saturday 4th July. Drove to Kagegawa in Shizuoka Prefecture, about 150Km from Nagoya to see Kakegawa Castle. The castle was first built about 500 years ago and was destroyed after an earthquake in 1854. The keep was re-built in 1993, while the castle palace is original. The town's reconstructed symbol and the attached palace have been used many times for Samurai films including ones by famed director, Akira Kurosawa.
The castle was Japan's first modern reconstruction castle rebuilt in the traditional way using all wood. All the other reconstructed castles are made of concrete. The wooden interior lends a more authentic feel to the castle, and they've gone as far as to incorporate all the defence traps and gun windows too. The steep stairs saved space inside the confines of the keep, and helped in defence of the castle. Armour laden attackers would find it difficult to mount the stairs...
Even the local man-hole covers featured the town's symbol...
After a day at Kakegawa, it was a brief stop at one of Japan's larger and well known lake districts, Hamanako for a late lunch, before heading off to Toyohashi....
No comments:
Post a Comment