Thursday, August 11, we got up and headed for the train station.
We went to Shinjuku, then took the Odakyu-sen to Odawara, a smallish city by the ocean. One of the main attractions of Odawara is its castle, which is about a 10-minute walk from the train station.
We stopped at a small park right next to the moat for lunch.
We had a pretty view.
Watching the carp in the moat.
View of how the castle walls were constructed.
One of the main gates -- this one was called the "Akagane" gate, because the doors were sheathed with "red metal" (copper).
The inner side of the gate.
The room above the gate. Soldiers and archers would defend the gate from here.
After lots of stairs and more walls and gates, we came to the main castle grounds!
Looking at the monkeys.
Siblings... normal and goofy.
Looking down on the grounds.
The ocean in the background!
In side the castle was a museum, with descriptions of its history. It was first built in 1447, then rebuilt in 1663 and 1706. It was attacked by, and successfully defended against, some of the big names in Japanese history, such as Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen. It was finally defeated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1590, then passed on to Tokugawa Ieyasu. After being torn down (along with almost all the castles in the country) in the late 1800s when Japan Westernized itself, it was rebuilt to its current form in 1960. It was renovated this year, and just re-opened a couple of months ago.
Here is a model of what the compound looked like in its heyday. The Akagane Gate is near the lower left.
The museum also had historical artifacts, like these really old dishes...
... and armor ...
... and swords, some of them 800 years old.
There is an observatory on the top floor. It gets some flak, and there is talk of removing it, because it's not historically accurate. But it has some great views.
After looking around for a while, we headed back down.
Then we headed for the ocean...
No comments:
Post a Comment