Himeji Castle has stood for more than four hundred years, surviving earthquakes, an auction for a few coins and the bombing of 1945, and it was never attacked. It is the largest original castle in Japan and a killing machine disguised as a white heron. Twelve stops through its maze-like gates, the old woman's stone, the well of the plate ghost, the corridor of the princess who escaped from Osaka, the loopholes and traps, the great keep with its twenty-five-metre pillar, the shrine of the goddess on the top floor, the bomb that did not explode, the samurai garden and the mountain temple. Approximate audio duration: 19 minutes.
▸ Ver en español
Himeji: el castillo blanco diseñado para que nadie llegara a la torre
El castillo de Himeji lleva más de cuatrocientos años en pie, sobrevivió a terremotos, a una subasta por unas monedas y a los bombardeos de 1945, y nunca fue atacado. Es el castillo original más grande de Japón y una máquina de matar disfrazada de garza blanca. Doce paradas por sus puertas laberínticas, la piedra de la anciana, el pozo del fantasma de los platos, el corredor de la princesa que escapó de Osaka, las aspilleras y las trampas, la gran torre con su pilar de veinticinco metros, el santuario de la diosa del último piso, la bomba que no estalló, el jardín de los samuráis y el templo de la montaña. Duración aproximada de audio: 19 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~19 min of audio · 9.61 km on foot (~2 h 25 min walking) · about 2 h 45 min in total
You are on the great esplanade in front of Himeji Castle. Look up: a six-storey white keep on a hill, surrounded by smaller towers, curved roofs layered like wings. That is why it is called Shirasagi-jo, the white heron castle.
It is the largest original feudal castle preserved in Japan. Of the thousands of castles the country once had, only twelve keep their original keep. This is the most complete.
There was a fort on this hill from the fourteenth century. Hideyoshi built a three-storey keep here in the 1580s. But the castle you see was built between 1601 and 1609 by Ikeda Terumasa, son-in…
2
The Diamond Gate
You are at Hishi-no-mon, the largest surviving gate in the castle. Look on the beam above the entrance for a small diamond-shaped ornament, hishi. That is where the name comes from.
Notice the upper-floor windows: some have wooden lattices; others, bars painted black and gold. It is an elegant, almost palatial gate. It was the first impression for visitors.
But it was also a defensive point. From the upper floor, soldiers could shoot anyone trying to force the entrance.
The castle originally had dozens of gates. About twenty survive today, and most of the buildings are originals from the se…
3
A Maze for the Enemy
Walk slowly along this path between white walls. Notice how it turns: sometimes it brings you closer to the keep, sometimes it takes you away. You pass through small gates, one after another, marked with syllables of the Japanese alphabet: i, ro, ha, ni.
This is no accident. It is a maze. An attacker rushing towards the keep would find himself moving away from it, trapped in dead-end passages, feeling lost.
The gates narrow. Some let only one person through at a time. That way a huge army turns into a line of isolated men.
And at every bend, from above and from the sides, there are walls an…
4
The Old Woman's Stone
Look at the stone wall and find a round stone with a hole in the middle, covered by a metal net. It is a millstone. It is called Ubagaishi, the old woman's stone.
Legend says that when Hideyoshi was building his keep on this hill at the end of the sixteenth century, there were not enough stones. An old woman who sold rice cakes at the foot of the castle heard about it and gave him her millstone, the only valuable thing she owned.
Hideyoshi was so moved that he had it placed in the wall. When word spread, people from the region began bringing stones, and the construction went ahead.
It is a …
5
The Ghost Who Counts Plates
You are in front of a stone well covered by a grille in the courtyard. It is Okiku's well, setting of one of the most famous ghost stories in Japan.
Okiku was a servant at the castle. She was in charge of ten very valuable porcelain plates. According to the Himeji version, a scheming samurai hid one of the plates to frame her, because she had uncovered a conspiracy.
Accused of losing the plate, Okiku was tortured, killed and thrown into this well.
Ever since, the legend says, every night a woman's voice is heard rising from the well, counting: one, two, three... up to nine. And then a screa…
6
The Princess Who Escaped the Fire of Osaka
You are in the Nishi-no-maru, the west enclosure. Step into the long wooden corridor that follows the wall: the Hyakken Roka, almost three hundred metres long. Behind its windows lived the castle's ladies-in-waiting.
At the end is the Kesho Yagura, the dressing tower. It was the resting place of a woman with an extraordinary story: Princess Sen, Senhime.
Senhime was Tokugawa Ieyasu's granddaughter. At six, for political reasons, she was married to Toyotomi Hideyori, Hideyoshi's son. She lived in Osaka Castle.
In 1615, when her grandfather attacked Osaka, she was inside. Before the end, she …
7
Triangles, Circles and Squares
Before entering the keep, look at the white walls around the courtyard. They are full of small geometric holes: circles, triangles, squares. They look like decoration. They are not.
They are called sama: loopholes. The round and triangular ones were for arquebuses; the rectangular ones for bows. The castle has nearly a thousand. From inside, the defender sees everything; from outside, the attacker sees only a hole.
Now look beneath some of the tower windows: there are projections at the base of the walls with openings facing down. They are ishiotoshi, stone drops. From there stones or boilin…
8
The Two Pillars
You are inside the main keep. Take off your shoes and climb the steep wooden stairs. From outside you see five roofs; inside there are six floors and a basement.
Look for the two enormous wooden pillars that run through the building from bottom to top, the east one and the west one. Each is about twenty-five metres long. They are the keep's backbone.
During the great restoration of the fifties and sixties the castle was dismantled piece by piece and reassembled. The west pillar was rotten and had to be replaced.
They searched all over Japan for a tree tall and straight enough. The first one…
9
The Goddess of the Top Floor
You have reached the top floor. Look out of the windows: the city of Himeji, the mountains and, on clear days, all the way to the Inland Sea. Now look at the middle of the room: there is a small Shinto shrine.
It is dedicated to Osakabe, a deity of the hill who existed before the castle. According to legend, when the keep was built, Osakabe settled on the top floor and stayed to live there.
In Edo-period tales Osakabe is an unsettling figure: a mysterious woman who appears to samurai on night watch, who knows the future and punishes those who defy her.
One legend says that the famous swords…
10
The Bomb That Did Not Explode
You are in the Bizen-maru courtyard, at the foot of the keep. From here you see its full height: some forty-five metres from the stone base to the roof. Imagine it covered in black nets.
During the Second World War, Himeji's residents covered the white keep with black straw netting so that it would not serve as a landmark for bombers. It shone too brightly.
On the night of 3 to 4 July 1945, B-29s bombed Himeji with incendiaries. Much of the city burned. Hundreds of people died.
The next morning the townspeople looked up in fear. The keep was still standing. According to the story, an incend…
11
The Garden Over the Samurai Houses
You are at Koko-en, a set of nine gardens separated by walls beside the castle moat. Ponds with carp, waterfalls, bamboo, a teahouse. Above the trees peeks the white keep.
It is a new garden: it opened in 1992. But the land is not new. The residences of the high-ranking samurai who served the lord of the castle stood here.
Excavations revealed the foundations of the houses, the paths and the walls. The architects respected that layout: each of the nine gardens occupies the site of a former residence.
In the Edo period people lived around the castle in rings according to rank: the most impor…
12
The Mountain Temple
You have taken the ropeway up Mount Shosha. Among enormous cedars appears the Maniden, a great wooden hall held up on stilts against the hillside, like Kiyomizu in Kyoto. You are at Engyo-ji.
This temple is much older than the castle: it was founded in 966. For centuries it was one of the great centres of Buddhism in western Japan. Emperors and feudal lords climbed up here to pray.
A little further on, three great wooden halls surround an earthen courtyard. The place is so imposing that scenes of the film The Last Samurai were shot here in 2003.
From the mountain you can see the Himeji plai…
How long does the "Himeji: the White Castle Designed So No One Could Reach the Keep" audio tour take?
It has about 19 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 9.61 km walking route (~2 h 25 min on foot). Plan roughly 2 h 45 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The White Heron" (coordinates 34.8357, 134.6939). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Himeji and pick "Himeji: the White Castle Designed So No One Could Reach the Keep". No account required to start.
Free app
No wifi needed · Spanish, English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean
