Osaka Castle

This post takes you through a quick tour of the Castle and its surrounding parkland, much of it in the order I saw things. After a train journey through Osaka's inner suburbs, I alighted at Morinomiya station and entered the Castle grounds across the street. The first sights were the fountain shown here, a bit of respite on a hot day, and the outer moat - quite a ditch!

The came views of two turrets (the first of which is the the Ichiban turret, and the second, which  also shows the outer moat) and a Shinto Shrine.

Then I walked through the main Sakuramon (Cherry) Gate, which accesses the inner Baily. The original version was built in 1626, but that burned down like a lot of the castle at various times, so the one here dates from 1887.

The main feature of the inner Baily is the Castle, pictured here. It's on the site of a former monastery / temple dating back to 1496, but the first fortress was constructed by the man who united Japan, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, in the late 16th century (c. 1583). He did what the Emperor Qin did for China ... see an earlier post of mine this year. Versions of this Castle burned to the ground in 1665 and 1868, so today's structure only dates from 1931 and is celebrating its 80th anniversary at this moment.

The interior is a museum, not unlike the Tower of London. There are models of the Castle compound at various stages, works of art, letters about generals and negotiations, Japanese screens depicting events, suits of armour, three dimensional holograms of key events, and so on. The second picture above shows some gilt objects on display. All, by the way, had an English translation, which was very useful.

AS