Matsumoto Castle

On the same trip out to Nagano at the start of March, we veered into a northerly direction and headed towards Matsumoto Castle. It's a spectacularly well-preserved castle that managed to escape the fate of being demolished and sold for parts at least twice. I believe some parts of the roof and other ornaments are considered a National Treasure (by 'considered' I mean, it is labelled and officially documented as such). One of it's nicknames is Crow Castle since it looks so black. The original castle and all it's land encompassed pretty much all of Matsumoto city. Now, Only the Castle and grounds up until the innermost moat have survived.

When you purchase your ticket, you get admission into the Castle grounds and into the castle itself. To help preserve the Castle floors, which are made of cedar wood, you must remove your shoes, place them in a plastic bag, and carry them with you through the entire tour. They provide you with one-size-fits-all slippers. Normally, this wouldn't bother me. However, some of those ladders (which they called 'stairs') were so steep they may as well have zero incline. And the gap between each rung... I've done stairmaster exercises that were almost as difficult. Add to the mix, the winter boots that I was carrying, as well as the 1.5 kg camera and accessories, all the open windows in the middle of winter, and the slippers flip-flopping off my small sized feet... and it makes for a somewhat uncomfortable tour. We went at our own pace, but I notice that the taller people in the group wanted out as soon as possible. All ceilings were low and the space was tight.

The uncomfortable aspects aside, it WAS a well preserved castle from the height of the samurai era. Everything just felt so old. There was surprisingly few creaky sounds for the age of the wood. The quality of the wood of the castle is evident.

I have posted my favourite outside view from the day. There were also 2 swans in the moat. I don't know how they got there, and they weren't visible at the start of the tour, but I managed to get a fairly closeup angle on one. Both photos were shrunk for easier uploading.