MATSUMOTO CASTLE WITH UKIYO-E WOODBLOCK ART MUSEUM & MATSUMOTO OPEN AIR ARCHITECTURAL MUSEUM

SAT • 3 AUG
COST BY AGE GROUP:
$65 (16 & Up)
$55 (12–15)
$45 (6–11)
$35 (4–5)
$30 (3 & Under if a seat is needed)

ITINERARY:
Depart 7 a.m.
Matsumoto 10:30 a.m.–2 p.m.
Museums 2:30–4 p.m.
Return 7:30 p.m.

Tour cost includes your bus transportation, castle, and museum admissions. There will be a lot of walking on this tour. There are over 140 flights of stairs in the castle, and you’ll need to take your shoes off inside the castle.

Matsumoto Castle is one of the castles designated as national treasures of Japan and is the oldest castle donjon remaining in Japan. Construction began in 1592 on this elegant black and white structure with three turrets. Because of the elegant black roof, Matsumoto Castle is sometimes called the Crow Castle.

Inside the castle are steep stairs and low ceilings leading past displays of armor and weapons from the Sengoku period (“Warring States”) when the castle was built. The narrow wooden windows, once used by archers and gunmen, provide amazing views of the Japanese Alps, Matsumoto City, and the koi and swans circling in the moat below.

The Ukiyo-e Museum is an ultramodern building housing the private collection of the Sakai family, quite simply one of the best museums of woodblock prints in Japan. With more than 100,000 prints, it’s believed to be the largest collection of its kind in the world and includes representative masterpieces of all known Ukiyo-e artists.

The Matsumoto Open Air Architectural Museum is a collective of government buildings from the Edo to the late Showa period. The main building is the former Nagano District Court building, which was built in 1908.