Hamamatsu Castle

photo by くろふね · CC BY 3.0

Ieyasu held it for 17 years before the shogunate: it is called ‘the career castle’.

The dry-stone base (野面積み) is the real one of the castle Tokugawa Ieyasu ruled from 1570 to 1586, before leaving for the career that would take him to national power, hence the local nickname ‘castle of promotion’ (出世城). The keep visible today is a 1958 reconstruction; the park around it is among the city's best-known places for cherry blossom.

The keep is a 1958 reconstruction; the dry-stone base (野面積み), on the other hand, is original: it belongs to the castle Tokugawa Ieyasu held for seventeen years from 1570, and from which his career took off, which is why in Hamamatsu it is called ‘the castle of promotion’. It stands inside the castle park, one of the city's best-known spots for cherry blossom.

ℹ️ The keep charges admission and has opening hours; the park around it is free and always open. For the view from above, you go up to the eighth floor of the main city hall building and from there take the stairs to the terrace, which is closed on non-working days. The terrace is fenced with wire mesh, and the photo must be taken by zooming between the gaps in the mesh. The keep is open from 8:30 to 16:30, with last entry ten minutes before, and is closed from 29 to 31 December; it costs 200 yen, free up to junior high school and from the age of 70. In the park, about a hundred metres from the keep, is the monument to those killed in the bombing raids (浜松市戦災被爆者慰霊碑), erected on 21 March 1979: the inscribed text remembers just over 3,000 dead. Also in the park is the city art museum (浜松市美術館), open from 9:30 to 17:00 and normally closed on Mondays: with a museum ticket, entry to the keep drops from 200 to 180 yen.

🚉 Enshubyoin · 12 min walk

Gabriel DropOut

Gabriel comes down from the sky and the castle is one of the views passing beneath her, in the opening of the first episode: the keep among the cherry trees in blossom, seen from above. You cannot get that shot from the ground: it matches the viewpoint of the rooftop terrace of the city hall, which stands just to the east. In the stills the flags along the walls are white, whereas today they are red.

photo by くろふね · CC BY 3.0

Gabriel DropOut — Ukami · KADOKAWA / ASCII Media Works · anime Doga Kobo (2017)

All the places from Gabriel DropOut →

Sources: hamamatsu-daisuki.net · ameblo.jp · riyot.hatenablog.com · touyokojunrei.com · agorophius.hatenablog.com · entetsuassist-dms.com · soumu.go.jp · city.hamamatsu.shizuoka.jp

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