Himeji Castle

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Himeji Castle is a five story white castle which sits on top of a man made tower of rocks, on top of a hill in the middle of Himeji. It’s size and imposing position were really impressive. It was surrounded by a moat and after entering the front gate and walking up to the ticket office I started working my way up the steep hill to the castle entrance.

On the way I stopped off to tour the West Bailey which had some quite interesting information although as I didn’t have a lot of time I raced through a little quickly – I did read that the motif on the end of the roof tiles were something to do with the rulers of the castles which was good to know.

When I reached the main castle, I went inside and looked around climbed to the top where there were some good views. Unfortunately there wasn’t much to see in the castle itself – I’d read that this castle had been trapped but you needed the audio tour or an app to see info on this.

After leaving the main castle, you could see the block of stone they had built to sit the castle itself on. It was so impressive in size. On my next train I got chatting to a friendly Japanese chap who worked for Fujitsu who was telling me about how they had to gather the stone from all over to sit the castle on. I’d left the castle by 5 (about 1hr-1.5hrs) and so was well ahead of the closing time of 6 despite rushing around Himeji to get everything done which was a relief.

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