Maruoka Castle 丸岡城

A castle from the Sengoku period

Maruoka Castle was built in the midst of the troubled Sengoku era - in 1576 - by the nephew of an Oda Nobunaga general, Shibata Katsuyoko. At the time, it was used to counter the popular and egalitarian revolt of the ikkô -ikki . After the battle of Sekigahara (1600), the domain changed hands several times, passing from the own son of Ieyasu Tokugawa to the Honda clan before falling to the Arima clan. Following the Meiji Revolution in 1868, most of Japan's castles were destroyed, an undertaking that a dozen of them escaped, including Maruoka Castle .

Japan's oldest dungeon

Its "tenshu" or dungeon is still from the period , which allows it to appear in the list of the 12 original castles of Japan. The latter is considered the oldest in the country, and as such was named an important cultural property of Japan in 1950 . Quite small, it has 3 floors, a stone tiled roof and a hidden floor which cannot be seen from the outside. According to the legend, this dungeon would have been built following the rite of hitobashira or "human pillar", rite where a human being is immured in the construction in order to ensure its solidity. A one-eyed old woman named O-Shizu allegedly agreed to

A party place

Maruoka Castle is a popular place for locals for various festivities. Thus the cherry blossom season brings many visitors to admire the some 400 trees whose sakura have just bloomed and which look like a pink dress in the surroundings as well as on the path leading to the chateau. The scene is also repeated in the evening during the first three weeks of April - corresponding to the "cherry blossom festival at Maruoka Castle" - during which 300 paper lanterns are installed and lit between 6 and 10 p.m.

Also read : Cherry blossoms: when to go?