Kōfu Castle Ruins (Maizuru Park)

photo by 江戸村のとくぞう · CC BY-SA 4.0

photo by Drivephotographer · CC0

Built in 1583 on the Takeda ruins, but no keep has ever been proven to exist.

You climb between sixteenth-century stone walls up to the platform where the keep perhaps stood (天守, tenshu, the main tower of a Japanese castle): historians doubt it, and today there is nothing but the base. Three structures rebuilt in wood dot the route (the Inari turret, the Kajikuruwa gate and the Kurogane gate), and from the ramparts you can see the Kōfu basin, with Fuji on the horizon on clear days. In spring about 160 cherry trees blossom there.

Built from 1583 on the orders of Tokugawa Ieyasu on the ruins of the Takeda residence, the castle was completed by 1593 under the daimyō (feudal lord) Asano, in the time of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and later passed to the Yanagisawa clan in the Edo period. The name ‘Maizuru’ (dancing crane) comes from the shape of the walls, which resembles a crane with outstretched wings. None of the original structures still stands: the Inari turret was rebuilt in 2004, the Kajikuruwa gate in 1997 and the Kurogane gate in 2013. National Historic Site since February 2019.

ℹ️ Park always open and free. Inari turret and Kurogane gate: 9:00–16:00 (last entry), closing 16:30, free. Closed on Mondays (open if a public holiday, closed the following day) and from 29 December to 3 January. 5 minutes on foot from the south exit of Kōfu Station.

🚉 Kofu · 8 min walk

Sources: ja.wikipedia.org · kofu-tourism.com

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