The samurai class was abolished in the 1870s. Its architecture was not. Across Japan there are castles that were never rebuilt because they never fell, whole streets of retainers' houses still lived in, and towns where the same families have practised the same craft for six centuries.
Here is where that Japan is still standing, and how to build a trip around it.
The castles that are original
Japan had thousands of castles. Twelve keeps survive that were never destroyed and rebuilt — no concrete, no post-war reconstruction. Those twelve are the ones worth planning around.
Himeji, Hyogo
The one to see if you only see one. A UNESCO World Heritage site, and the finest surviving example of Japanese castle architecture: brilliant white plaster, layered roofs, and a defensive approach that deliberately winds and doubles back so that attackers spend as long as possible exposed. Locals call it Shirasagi-jō, the White Heron.
It is forty minutes from Kyoto by Shinkansen and visible from the station, straight down the main avenue.
Matsumoto, Nagano
Himeji's opposite in every way. Black lacquered walls instead of white, sitting flat on a plain with the Japanese Alps behind it rather than perched on a hill. A designated National Treasure, and the interior is original — steep wooden stairs, arrow slits, the lot. You climb the real thing.
Hikone and Inuyama
Both National Treasures, both far quieter than Himeji. Hikone sits above Lake Biwa. Inuyama, near Nagoya, has a claim to being the oldest surviving keep in the country.
Samurai districts you can walk
Retainers lived in dedicated quarters, the buke yashiki, clustered around the castle. Several survive nearly intact.
Nagamachi, Kanazawa
The best preserved of them. Narrow lanes between ochre earthen walls topped with dark tile, a water channel running through, and a handful of houses open to visitors with their gardens intact. In winter the walls are wrapped in straw matting to protect them from snow — worth seeing for that alone.
Kanazawa rewards a longer stay: Kenroku-en is considered one of Japan's three great gardens, and the city is the centre of gold leaf production.
Kakunodate, Akita
Deep in the north, and often called the little Kyoto of Tohoku. A broad street of samurai residences under a canopy of weeping cherry trees brought from Kyoto three centuries ago. In late April the whole avenue is pink; in October it is red.
Chiran, Kagoshima
At the far southern end of Kyushu. A row of samurai houses whose gardens are the real attraction — compact, borrowed-landscape designs that use the mountain behind the town as part of the composition.
Aizu-Wakamatsu, Fukushima
A town that held out longer than almost anywhere during the Boshin War of 1868, and which remembers it. Tsuruga Castle, a reconstruction with a distinctive red-tiled roof, plus the hillside associated with the Byakkotai, the teenage corps whose story every Japanese schoolchild knows.
Craft towns
The interesting thing about Japanese craft towns is that they did not become museums. They adapted and kept working.
Seki, Gifu
Seki has been a metalworking town for roughly seven hundred years and is now one of the largest cutlery-producing cities in the world. Its museum covers the history; its October festival fills the streets with workshops and demonstrations.
Sakai, Osaka
Where the tradition went commercial. Sakai's workshops supply a large share of the professional kitchen knives used in Japan, and several run open studios where you can watch sharpening done by hand.
Wajima, Ishikawa
Lacquerware, and a useful corrective to the idea that Japanese craft is all metal. Wajima-nuri involves dozens of layers over months. The morning market has run for more than a thousand years.
Timing the trip around a festival
- Jidai Matsuri, Kyoto, 22 October — a procession of more than a thousand people in accurate costume from every era of the city's history, walking from the Imperial Palace to Heian Shrine. The single best day of the year to see historical dress done properly.
- Hyakumangoku Matsuri, Kanazawa, early June — a parade re-enacting the lord's entry into the castle in 1583.
- Seki Cutlery Festival, October — the craft town at full volume.
A route that works
Most of this sits on or near the main Shinkansen line, which makes a rail pass sensible if you are covering several stops.
A clean ten days: Tokyo, then west to Kanazawa for Nagamachi and Kenroku-en, down to Kyoto, out to Himeji for the castle, and on to Osaka for Sakai. Add Matsumoto as a detour from Tokyo if you want the second castle, or Kakunodate if you are going north and want somewhere with almost no crowds.
Go in late March or April for cherry blossom, or the first half of November for autumn colour. Both are busy. Both are worth it.
Learning to look
Castles and houses reward a little preparation. Notice what the architecture is for: the switchback approaches, the murder holes above gates, the deliberately creaking floors in some interiors. Notice the gardens, which are compositions rather than plantings, and which almost always have a fixed viewpoint they were designed to be seen from.
If you want to go deeper into the craft side of this history, our guide to Japan's museums and working forges covers where to see the objects themselves, and how a blade is made explains the process behind them.