When you imagine how a castle would look in Japan, you are probably imagining the Himeji Castle. White, lots of levels, typical roofs and dominating over a city, it is certainly worth a visit. It is the largest castle in Japan, and while having been fixed and rebuilt, the original building is from the XIV century. As you can guess from the name, it is located in the city of Himeji (Hyogo Prefecture), just in the way between Osaka and Hiroshima. After visiting Hiroshima and Miyajima, we were heading to Osaka for our final destination in Japan before taking flight that would take us back home. On that way, we planned a few hours stop in Himeji to visit the castle.
First thing, we were using a JR Pass, so the train trips were included and we could “hop-on hop-off” as many times as we wanted during the 7 days, so we had no problem in getting off the train there. Click here to read about JR Pass and other “administrative” details of our trip to Japan.
So, as I said, we stopped at Himeji station. We were obviously carrying our luggage, but lucky for us, the stop in Himeji is something common, so the train station has many lockers where you can leave your luggage. Both packs fitted in one locker, which costed Y700 in total (just ensure to have 7 Y100 coins).
After memorizing where we left our luggage and grabbing some breakfast, we started walking towards the castle. It is a 20-25 minutes straight walk from the station main entrance (and everything is very well signaled in English), but you can take a bus if preferred.
We reached the castle, took a few nice pictures from the outside and started wandering if it would be worth paying the entrance, which was Y1,040 –USD 9.50- (including the Kokoen Garden next door, Castle only is Y1,000). We said “we are here, we have to do it”, and lucky we did.
The castle can be walked on your own (can pay for a guide if preferred), so you can set the pace. The views from the inner grounds are magnificent. You can then get into the castle and go all the way up to the higher viewing points. Bear in mind that stairs are a little tricky as the space to actually put your feet, specially going down, is quite small. Any way, it can be done easily.
The inside part of the castle is nice, mainly empty, so you can see the structure, but no furniture in there. When going all the way to the top, you get great views of the city, which at some point reflect the dominant position of the castle.
After going all the way down again, walking around the gardens and the rest of the complex, we headed out of the Castle. A few minutes’ walk from there the Kokoen Gardens are located. The ticket can be bought together with the castle ticket (just Y40 more), and the gardens are good enough for a short walk and enjoying the variety and quietness of a typical Japanese garden.
From there, we headed back to the train station, to recover our backpacks and jump into the train that would take us to Osaka. The entire visit took us no more than 3 hours, and was certainly worth it. We strongly recommend making a stop in your Japanese journey to visit the Himeji Castle.
Have you ever visited a castle? What about one in Asia? Would you like to see Japanese castles? Do you have questions about it? Tell us!