Today I leave Kyoto behind and travel to the third biggest city in Japan, Nagoya.
The day started without any problems, walked to the station, reserved a seat on the Hikari Shinkansen an arrived in Nagoya.
With the plan to visit the castle, I left my luggage in a locker and took the metro towards the castle grounds. There I learned that the castle tower itself is in renovation (until 2022) but the grounds surrounding it are open including the Nagoya Honmaru Goten Palace that only recently opened to the public after it was rebuild the traditional way. The original palace survived many natural disasters and political changes. But a WWII air raid burned it down.
But first I noticed that here you can enter one of the watch-houses often seen on the corners of the domains. As I’ve been curious about these after seeing them like, everywhere on the castle grounds. It was my first stop of the day. The inside is fairly simple, 3 stories of big open spaces with windows only on the outward facing walls and on the first floor the option to throw stones to climbing invaders.
Then I took a guided tour in a port of the Honmaru. They have English guides available. Here I was amazed. As I said before this palace was rebuild only recently using all the classic techniques. With a result that it’s all bright brown in contrast to all the previous sites I visited.
After the side building I visited the main part of this palace where the old lords would receive their guests. The walls of the rooms here are also adored with paintings in gold. Pretty much the same style as the Nijo-jo castle. Note: these are digital replica’s, the real ones that got saved from the fires are now in in restauration!
Unfortunately the castle itself is undergoing earthquake proofing and a restoration towards a wooden build instead off the concrete mass that was erected after the war. But to compensate for that they had the option to visit the castle in VR!
Another fun thing they have here is a group of re-enactors running around at certain times.
Next up, as usual was strolling around the city. Found the Nagoya tower and the central park, a shounen jump store and a platform called the spaceship that’s two floors high and is for 90% filled with water. This platform also provides a nice view of the Sakae area.
After tall that I made my way back to the station, picked up my stuff and proceeded to my hostel.
Dinner today was some fried vegetables with pork.