At 430 metres, the only mountain castle in Japan with its original tenshu still standing.
From the mid-level car park a shuttle bus goes up every 15 minutes to Fuigo-tōge (8th station), and from there it is 20 minutes on foot through the trees to the tenshu, at 430 metres on Mount Matsuyama (summit of Gagyū-san, 487 m). On mornings between late September and early April, with clear skies and a large temperature range, the castle re-emerges from a sea of low cloud that fills the Takahashi valley: this is the unkai phenomenon, and the viewpoints for photographing it from below are indicated separately by the castle itself.
The first fortifications on the mountain date back to the Kamakura period, the work of the local lord Akiniwa Shigenobu. Its present appearance (white plastered walls above a base of black wood) is the result of work by Mizutani Katsumune, completed in 1683 after three years of construction. It is one of the twelve Japanese castles that keep their original tenshu, and the only one of them that is a true mountain castle rather than standing on a plain or a low hill.
ℹ️ Open 9:00–17:00 (closes 17:30) from April to September, 9:00–16:00 (closes 16:30) from October to March. Closed 29 December–3 January. Adult ticket 500 yen, elementary/junior high school students 200 yen. The shuttle bus (paid, return trip) leaves from the Shiromi-bashi car park; without the bus, the walk up from the car park takes about 50 minutes, and from the railway station about 90.
🚉 シャトルバス乗り場 · 4 min walk
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