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.
Matsumoto is yet another country town, this time in rural Nagano, the prefecture that’s a popular destination for skiers & people who like apples. (It’s second only to Aomori prefecture, home to Hirosaki Castle, in apple production.)
Matsumoto in December of 2019 certainly wasn’t as snowy as Hirosaki had been in February of that year, but still had that sleepy, old-fashioned feel to it that so many of these castle towns seem to possess, especially in the areas closer to the castle:
Matsumoto castle is another hirajiro, meaning that it’s built on a plain.
These kinds of castles aren’t typically easy to defend, but Matsumoto was specifically built for defence against guns – the walls are reinforced and the castle is placed at the limit for an accurate shot from the matchlock guns used at the time it was built, in 1594.
In times of peace, Matsumoto castle had a few upgrades. Much like a fancy detached house in a good neighbourhood, it had an extension added in the form of a tower specifically designed for viewing the moon.
(This is less astronomically inclined than it sounds – a moon viewing party is a traditional Japanese way to relax, write haiku and get your saké on.)
The extra towers that Matsumoto possesses make it architecturally important – it’s apparently a rare preserved example of a connected towers castle, according to its national treasure declaration.
Inside the castle, there’s a impressive collection of firearms & what is claimed to be the steepest flight of stairs in any castle in Japan – although I’m not sure about that, I personally think Maruoka has dibs on that.
Once you make it up to the top of the castle, you discover why the castle has survived so long – according to a legend, on the night of January 26th, 1618, a guard saw an apparition of a goddess who said that if 500kg of rice was left for her on the 26th of every month, she’d protect the castle.
(This date is also my mother’s birthday, so I must ask her if castle protection is a side-hustle she never told us about.)
On a clear day you can also get stunning views of the Japanese Alps from the higher levels of the castle, but there wasn’t much to see when I was here this time, unfortunately – winter snow clouds had ensconced themselves in front of the scenery.
Outside, there are some beautiful gardens with some “points of interest.” There’s a cherry tree where a horse was tied up by Kato Kiyomasa, the samurai boss of the Kumamoto region way back when. Also something of a fan of brutality & violence, earning him the nickname, The Devil General.
(I agree that this being a point of interest is possibly a very loose interpretation of the phrase, but it is genuinely marked out at the castle & it’s even on their website, literally written as “Cherry tree to which a horse was tied”. Go figure.)
My personal favourite for a point of interest would be the space azaleas, grown from seeds that had been taken into space by a Japanese astronaut. Clearly, this has very little relation to samurai or castles but that’s kind of the charm for me.
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