Bitchu Matsuyama Castle

There is a hike up this castle on top of the mountain. Don’t trust google maps that it is an easy hike. It was not easy, it was steep. If you would like to skip the hardest parts of the hike, get a taxi from the JR station to take you to the parking lot of the castle. The trail from the parking lot is a lot better than the trail from the streets/samurai houses area. Overall, the hike was worth it to go to this castle in the sky. The castle is one of the few original castles in Japan. You can enter the castle for a small fee and admire its wooden structure.

Beautiful climb up a winding road to get to the castle, nice view from many different points along the walk up, there is a ¥500 entry cost to go in the castle walls and see them from the inside but even just getting to the top is nice and free. A the top you get to meet the guardian Cat of the castle who is a sweet heart as well.

This is one of the so called “12 genzon-tenshukaku”, roughly translated as “original castle keep”. These 12 castle keeps were built before or during the Edo period, and are not modern reconstructions like the Osaka or Nagoya castles. This castle is famous for the castle keep but the current resident of the castle, Sanjurō, is probably more famous than the castle itself (see photos!). The displays inside are all in Japanese and if you’re a foreigner, you may struggle to understand the castle’s history and construction. I walked from Bicchu Takahashi station, and it took about half an hour to walk to the start of the climb to the castle. Yes, you read that right, it is a proper “climb” up a gradual but continuous uphill slope. You will need to have decent footwear if you want to walk to the castle from the bottom. It took me about twenty minutes to walk the mile or so but then I am reasonably fit. If you are not fit or have health issues, just take the cab from the station. One thing I was not told when purchasing the entrance ticket for the castle (¥500) was that there is a combination ticket for the castle, the buke-yashiki (2 of them) and Raikyu-Ji temple for ¥1,000, which saves you ¥400 compared to buying all three entrance tickets separately.

After watching it disappear and reappear in the mist from the observatory on the other side of the valley, we had to go to see the castle! Instead of taking the shuttle from the parking lot, we walked. It’s an easy (uphill) walk on the road of about 20 minutes to the trail head. The trail is about 700m long, and is quite steep - with lots of stairs. Some of the mist still remained when we arrived (around 9am) and it’s certainly a beautifully restored little castle to explore, with great views of the surrounding area.

Bitchu Matsuyama castle, famously known as the castle in the clouds, is also one of the 12 original castles in Japan, sits at more than 400m on the mountain top, making it the tallest castle in Japan. But because of this, getting to the castle is no easy feat. Unless you wish to take almost 2 hours journey on foot from the train station, the easiest would be booking a shared taxi at the tourist information centre (located at Bitchu Takahashi Station) which will take you to one of the upper parking lots in the mountain, after which it’ll be a 20 min hike to the castle grounds. The other method would be to take a bus from Bitchu Takahashi Station to the castle trail where it’ll be another hour’s hike to the top. The castle itself isn’t very impressionable, being very modest in size, in fact probably the smallest castle in Japan (or at least we have seen so far), and isn’t as ornate or grand as the others. However, at that height it does offer a panoramic view of the mountain range and the city below, but then again there are many other sights which also offer spectacular views, if not better. The autumn foliage is also not as spectacular as other attractions we’ve seen and unfortunately even the charms of the current lord of the castle, Sanjuro the cat, wouldn’t be enough to win our hearts.