Nagoya Castle: Travel Guide (4.2★)

Two golden fish-tigers crown the roof of the keep, one at each end of the ridge, and they catch the light from well outside the moat. These are the kinshachi, the gilded shachihoko that Nagoya puts on its souvenirs, manhole covers and castle-themed everything. Seeing them over the stone walls of Nagoya Castle tells you what the city thinks of itself.

This is one of the most-reviewed sights in central Japan. It is also a castle with a complicated story, and it helps to know that story before you arrive.

A 1612 castle, rebuilt more than once

Tokugawa Ieyasu ordered the castle built, and it was completed in 1612. It was meant to guard the Tokaido route and house his ninth son’s branch of the family, the Owari Tokugawa. For more than three centuries it stood as one of the grandest castles in the country.

American air raids burned the keep and most of the palace in May 1945. The keep you see today is a 1959 reconstruction in reinforced concrete, faithful on the outside. The massive stone walls survived the fire, and they are original.

Look closely at the lower stones. Many carry carved marks: circles, fans, triangles. These were the crests of the feudal lords whose crews quarried and hauled each block, a record of who built what.

The keep you can’t climb, and the palace you can

The main keep has been closed to visitors since 2018. The city plans to replace the concrete structure with a wooden rebuild using the original methods, and work has moved slowly. Check the official Nagoya Castle site for current status before promising anyone a view from the top.

The real reason to come now is the Hommaru Palace, just beside the keep. It was rebuilt in cypress wood using Edo-period techniques and fully reopened in 2018. You walk through it in stockinged feet along polished corridors.

Inside, the rooms get more lavish as you move deeper:

• The Entrance Hall (Genkan): sliding doors painted with tigers and leopards, meant to intimidate arriving visitors.
• The Omote-shoin: the formal audience hall, with gold-leaf screens and coffered ceilings.
• The Jorakuden: built for shogun visits, the most elaborate of all, with carved transoms and painted ceilings.

The paintings are reproductions of originals that were evacuated before the bombing and survive in storage. The Edo-period exhibits and artifacts elsewhere on the grounds fill in the rest.

Shoes off at the palace door

The palace has its own etiquette. Follow it and the visit runs smoothly.

• Shoes come off at the entrance and go into provided lockers or bags. Wear socks without holes; the floors are bare wood.
• Don’t touch the painted doors or lean on the pillars. Staff will remind you, politely and firmly.
• Photos are generally allowed in the palace without flash. Signs mark any exceptions.
• Tickets are bought at the gate machines or booths. The current price is posted there and on the official site.
• Big bags are awkward in the narrow palace corridors. Coin lockers near the gates are worth using.

Queues for the palace form at the entrance and move in a steady line. When the grounds are busy, staff may meter entry, so a little patience at the door is normal.

Beat the weekend crush

This castle is very well visited, and timing makes a real difference. It’s calmest between 9am and 10am, on weekdays and weekends alike. That first hour gives you the palace corridors with space to stop and look up at the ceilings.

Avoid arriving between 11am and 4pm on a weekend. That’s when the grounds are at their busiest, tour groups stack up at the palace entrance, and photos of the keep come with a hundred strangers in them.

The castle opens at 9:00am and closes at 4:30pm every day of the week. Leave enough time for the palace before the gates shut. A thorough visit takes around two to three hours; a focused one on the palace and walls takes about 90 minutes.

Getting to Honmaru

The address is 1-1 Honmaru, Naka Ward. The simplest route is the subway.

• Nagoya-jo Station (Meijo Line): until 2023 it was called Shiyakusho. Take Exit 7 and walk a few minutes to the East Gate.
• Sengen-cho Station (Tsurumai Line): the better choice if you want the Main (West) Gate. It is roughly a ten-minute walk.
• Me-Guru bus: the city’s sightseeing loop bus from Nagoya Station stops at the castle. It’s handy if you’re also visiting the Noritake Garden or the Toyota Commemorative Museum.

Around Nagoya-jo Station, look at the Nagoya City Hall and Aichi Prefectural Office buildings. Both are 1930s buildings in the Imperial Crown Style, with Japanese-style roofs on Western bodies. They are worth a slow walk past.

Kinshachi Yokocho and the seasons

Just outside the gates is Kinshachi Yokocho, a cluster of restaurants built for castle visitors. It’s a convenient place to try Nagoya’s regional food without hunting across the city.

Look for these local dishes:

• Miso katsu: pork cutlet under a dark, sweet hatcho miso sauce.
• Hitsumabushi: grilled eel over rice, eaten three different ways from one bowl.
• Kishimen: flat, wide wheat noodles in a light broth.
• Tebasaki: peppery fried chicken wings.

The grounds are planted with cherry trees, and late March to early April is the peak season. It is also the most crowded time of year, so the 9am rule matters even more. In autumn the maples near the moats turn, and Nagoya’s summer heat makes early mornings the comfortable choice.

The Ninomaru Garden, on the east side of the grounds, is a quieter corner once you’ve done the palace. From there, the Tokugawa Art Museum makes a natural second stop. It holds the Owari Tokugawa family’s surviving treasures, the things that once filled these rooms.