Japan's Hikone Castle: A National Treasure You Can Drive Into

Hikone Castle & the Old Guard 

Japan used to have lots of castles. Several thousand of them, actually. Many were built in the 15th and 16th Centuries during Japan’s Sengoku-jidai – the 150 years or so when everyone was fighting with everyone over land and rice and who got to use what title.

The vast majority of those castles are gone, destroyed during the fighting, lost to natural disaster (fire and earthquake being the usual suspects), or purposefully demolished when, with the onset of the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan decided they didn’t want to see any more castles (or use any more of those titles).

Today there are only about 50 castles in Japan. Most of those are either reconstructions or mere ruins. Only a dozen of Japan’s extant castles are originals, meaning they are the real thing, built when the Japanese were all fighting to keep each other off their land and their precious little titles.

Of these twelve still-standing castles, only four – Himeji, Matsumoto, Inuyama and Hikone – are on Japan’s list of Registered National Treasures.

Put another way, eight of Japan’s 400-year-old castles are not officially treasured. Meanwhile parents in the US are throwing their kids elaborate parties for making it to sixteen.

Two Trips to Number Three

I’d been to both Himeji and Matsumoto Castles numerous times, on my own and as a guide. They have their similarities and differences, but they are both are indeed special. Inuyama, the only privately-owned castle in Japan, has been on my radar forever but somehow I keep missing it as I travel back and forth across the country. Maybe because I have to keep going home and take care of the kids before my wife really implodes.

Hikone had also been on my to-do list for years. In 2015 I finally got to go, thanks to a guy who ran a tour business in Slovenia; evidently he thought I was some kind of Japan expert and hired me to guide him and his group to wherever I thought would be cool.

Even if I’d never been there before.

Ironically, I didn’t get to see Hikone-jo. Not in any memorable sense. At first I was too busy trying not to get lost as I led everyone around. Then I had to go find everyone who had gone off on their own and gotten lost (unhappy, presumably, with how lost I was).

For the next tour my guy from Slovenia suggested we skip Hikone.

The Road to - and into - Hikone Castle.

Partial Recall

Four years later, working a cycling tour for a guy from Switzerland, I’d make it back to Hikone Castle. The other Japanese guide and I were transporting the group’s bikes from Takayama to Kyoto while our Swiss Fuhrer rode the train with the group. The other guide and I made the easy decision to stop by Hikone since it was more or less kind of on the way.

Immediately I recognized a few of the major aspects of the castle: the moat and the stone walls, and the trees I’d said something about to my Slovenian group – something that was probably wrong though what does it matter, people generally don’t listen anyway.

Today, driving around the vicinity of the castle entrance looking for cheap parking I noticed something I hadn’t in 2015.

Castles like those in Himeji and Kanazawa maintain their original boundaries (more or less), wherein vehicles are not allowed except for the groundskeepers and lazy public officials. In Matsumoto some of the original castle grounds have been preserved (reclaimed?) but the outer reaches have been permanently taken over by modern and short-sighted development.

Hikone exists in between the two.

Looking across the inner moat at the Hikone Castle Museum, one of the few buildings around here you can't drive to.

The road leading to the castle entrance keeps going, right into the castle. Not the castle tower, of course; that part sits atop a steep hill. But where once you’d get your head chopped off for walking your straw sandals over the moat and onto the castle grounds, you now get to drive all over the place.

The innermost section of Hikone-jo does sit up on a hill. I think even the lazy politicians have to walk. The second-most inner garden, the ni-no-maru, sits on the flat ground surrounding this hill. This is where you get to drive all over.

Genkyuen, at the base of the hill, has all the trimmings of a traditional Japanese garden. Adjacent is Rakurakuen Palace, which served as the castle lord’s residence. These things you’d expect at any Japanese castle let alone one of the most officially treasured. But here at Hikone the fun rolls on.

Keep cruising the ni-no-maru; among the moats and old walls are two schools, a few municipal buildings, and the town’s courthouse; the library and a museum; a baseball field. Plenty of parking. And off to the side – as if the people in charge of placing statues didn’t like him – a statue of Ii Naosuke. (Actually a lot of people didn’t like him.)

Back at Hikone Castle after all this time I wanted to take it slow and really soak up the quiet, eclectic ni-no-maru. But our van, packed with luggage and towing a trailer loaded with bicycles, was kind of illegally parked.

The other guide and I hurried over the moat and up the hill.

 Built to Confuse and Collapse

Like any self-respecting castle, Hikone-jo was designed for defense against attacking forces and, arguably, lazy people. The gates now stand open but the winding stone steps are not for the weak-legged. Near the top, the path leads under the wooden bridge that one crosses over to get to the castle’s front door. It’s pretty, but it’s also deadly.

Aside from being built with no nails (a common practice in the history of Japanese architecture), this bridge holds a secret feature that today is not so secret. In the event a mob of attacking forces got this close to the heart of the castle, a piece of the bridge could be quickly removed, initiating its collapse.

Not surprisingly, there’s no mention anywhere of where this removable bit is located. As a consolation I walked halfway across the bridge and started jumping up and down. Not a very nice thing to do maybe but it got everyone out of my pictures.

Hikone-jo is not large, even by Japanese standards. But it’s the real thing, built over ten years and completed in 1622. Inside and out the exposed structure is on display: the wood pillars and beams supporting the castle, including the heavy clay tiles of the ornate roof...

...the stones that, without mortar, comprise the ramparts and the castle walls...

 ...and the way in which the wood and the stones are brought together.

There is also a statue of Ii Naosuke inside the castle, in a glass case lined on the bottom with white stones, or perhaps Styrofoam peanuts left over from the packaging.

From the upper reaches of the castle keep one is afforded a nice if limited view of Biwa-ko, Japan’s largest lake. I hear that near the end of the 19th Century a canal was built to transport people and freight from this area to nearby Kyoto while also providing water for drinking, farming and fighting fires. I’m just a guide though, don’t take my word for it.

My perception of Hikone-jo, garnered from my two whirlwind stops, is that it doesn’t get as many visitors as the castles of Himeji and Matsumoto. Why this is I can only speculate. Maybe there are too many idiots jumping up and down on that bridge.

In a couple of years Hikone will celebrate the castle’s 400th birthday. If I’m lucky I’ll be working another tour in the very general area and will be able to swing by.

Though if it’s crowded I think I may pass. Because honestly, I don’t trust that bridge if there's going to be anyone else on it.