After enjoying the Senshu Park in Akita City and the former castle and samurai town Kakunodate I left Akita Prefecture to explore Aomori Prefecture.
I started extremely early in the morning, because I had a tight schedule for the day.
First I wanted to see Ne Castle in Hachinohe and then go to the Shimokita Peninsula to visit one of Japan’s most sacred places: Mt. Osore.
Exploring Ne Castle
Hachinohe’s Ne Castle (根城) is definitely not very famous, but quite unique!
From the JR Hachinohe Station you can take a bus that will take you there in about 15 minutes, so it’s definitely worth a visit if you’re already in Hachinohe and have some spare time! If you can read Japanese, you can find detailed access information here.
I was so early that the entrance to the castle was still closed!
I saw on TV that the rest of Japan was hit by a typhoon the night before and that it would come to Tohoku this very day, so I wanted to start as early as possible to arrive at my second destination before the typhoon would hit.
The weather was already suspiciously dark and it also started raining a bit.
Luckily the people working there came early and I told them about my situation. They were nice enough to let me in and also called me a taxi as I had to hurry back to the station to catch my train.
That’s why I couldn’t enjoy the castle to the fullest. I had to rush trough all the buildings.
Yet I got to see everything! ^-^;
As you can see “Ne Castle” is not your typical Japanese castle.
There were a lot of illustrations and pictures that gave you a good idea of the previous layout of the castle.
The reconstruction of the castle is really well done. They used original material.
Nobody knows for sure how the buildings exactly looked, so they just built a variety of different building and roof types that were typical at that time.
As you can see (and please ignore the horrible weather) spring is a nice time to visit as there are several cherry blossom trees in the park!
Locations of the pillars and walls of each building were discovered through archeological excavations.
There is enough information nowadays that we know the function of each of those buildings.
You could go inside most of the buildings.
Attention, low ceiling!!
It was very interesting as they had displayed a lot of items that were used back then.
Explanations were in Japanese only, but with the pictures I think you could understand it well enough.
Ne Castle doesn’t have a main turret anymore. Instead this map marks where the main tower used to stand.
And then I left in a rush, taking a taxi to the station.
I rarely use taxis because they’re quite expensive, but I didn’t have a choice.
Days following a national holiday (but open if it’s a Sat or Sun)
Dec 27 – Jan 4
Random closing days towards the end of the month.
400 yen for a combination ticket for the castle + museum
Nice springtime photos, despite the ominous weather! They remind me of some historical parks I’ve seen down in Kyuushu. I suppose there are quite a few of these scattered about Japan.
Historical parks yes. Castles that look like that one, no! ^__^