天守 (tenshu) is the Japanese word for a castle tower. There are only 12 original tenshu left in Japan. I visited them all over a couple of years and made some simple videos. You can find a map of the 12 and a little more information on this page.
Bitchu-Matsuyama is definitely one of my favourite castles. It’s the only surviving mountain castle, or 山城 (yamajiro), it’s the highest castle in Japan, at 430m above sea level and, if all that wasn’t enough, it’s the oldest too, so it’s really something quite special.
The ‘Bitchu’ prefix, while ripe for plenty of puerile puns, is, I’m sorry to say, just the name of the surrounding area. There’s a Matsuyama castle in Ehime and it would seem that Ehime-Matsuyama just didn’t have the right cadence, so Bitchu stepped up to the moniker mound.
Bitchu-Matsuyama sits atop Mount Gagyu, 臥牛山, which means Lying Cow Mountain. (Again, a lot of puerile humour to be found there.) It’s so named because from the side, according to people who check this kind of thing, it looks like a cow lying down.
The castle was first built here in 1240, but on a different peak – 大松山 (Omatsuyama) or Big Pine Mountain and then, about 70 years later, it was moved to 小松山 (Komatsuyama) or Little Pine Mountain, which is where it is now. That’s long enough ago for it to have been a completely different design than what you see nowadays. The current version dates back to the early 17th century, although it nearly didn’t make it to ours.
Luckily for us some local historical types got together in 1929 and did their best to save the castle, leading to it being recognized as an important cultural property in 1950. Finally, the government stepped in, restoring it to its former glory by the start of the sixties.
You can find Bitchu-Matsuyama in Takahashi City, so it’s also known as Takahashi castle, apparently, although I’ve never seen really seen this written anywhere with any degree of commitment – it’s always as an afterthought: “AKA Takahashi”. (The train station is even called Bitchu-Takahashi, so it’s not like anyone seems to be that enamoured of the name.)
Most of the directions I found to the castle were a little on the THIS WILL BE AN EPIC ADVENTURE side of things:
Take the Youme Town Shuttle Bus (100 yen) or Takahashi City Loop Bus (160 yen) from the Takahashi Bus Center next to Bitchu-Takahashi Station to Matsuyamajo Tojoguchi or Matsuyamajo Tozanguchi bus stop respectively, from where it is a two kilometer, one hour climb to the castle.
https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5777.html
I asked at the bus station and got what I thought were pretty helpful and useful directions. I wasn’t on the bus for very long before I got off at one of those stops and found myself in the middle of nowhere & unable to see a castle anywhere.
Ho-hum. In the end it probably was about a one hour climb up to the castle, but it was a beautiful day, the views were brilliant and I needed the exercise.
On the way down, I asked the car park attendant which way was quicker – the way I had come up or the mysterious windy path to our right? Turns out it was the latter, and twenty minutes later I was back at the station, so if you ever venture out here, don’t take the bus, just plod on down the main road beside the station towards the mountain, until you see a sign pointing towards the castle. BONUS: you can even visit some old samurai houses on the way.
The castle itself is pretty teeny and not startlingly impressive but situated where it is, with breathtaking views of the landscape around and below, it has a very unique charm all of its own.
CityHillsAndSea 