In the Edo period Kanazawa was the capital of the richest domain in Japan after the shogun's own, and its lords, the Maeda, poured that wealth into gardens, theatre and crafts rather than armies. In 1945 the city was never bombed, which is why its wooden streets still stand. Thirteen stops between a fish market nearly three centuries old, the teahouse quarter, gold beaten until it turns translucent, the castle gate, the white walls with lead roofs, one of the country's three great gardens, the oldest fountain in Japan, the round museum with an Argentine swimming pool, the shrine with stained glass, the samurai lanes, the second geisha quarter and the temple of trapdoors everyone calls the ninja temple. Approximate audio duration: 25 minutes.
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Kanazawa: la ciudad del oro y los samuráis que las bombas no tocaron
Durante la era Edo, Kanazawa fue la capital del feudo más rico de Japón después del propio shogun, y sus señores, los Maeda, invirtieron esa riqueza en jardines, teatro y artesanía en lugar de ejércitos. En 1945 la ciudad no fue bombardeada, y por eso todavía conserva sus calles de madera. Trece paradas entre el mercado de pescado de casi tres siglos, el barrio de las casas de té, el oro batido hasta volverse transparente, la puerta del castillo, los muros blancos de techo de plomo, uno de los tres grandes jardines del país, la fuente más antigua de Japón, el museo redondo con una pileta argentina, el santuario con vitrales, las calles de los samuráis, el segundo barrio de geishas y el templo de las trampas que todos llaman de los ninjas. Duración aproximada de audio: 25 minutos.
Tour stops
13 stops · ~25 min of audio · 6.62 km on foot (~1 h 40 min walking) · about 2 h 15 min in total
You are in the covered aisles of Omicho Market. Look around: red crabs stacked high, oysters the size of a hand, boxes of sweet shrimp glistening on ice. There are around one hundred and seventy stalls, and the people of Kanazawa have been shopping here for almost three centuries.
The Sea of Japan is only a few kilometres away. In winter the local star arrives: kobako, the female snow crab, small and full of roe. It is caught for only a few weeks a year.
To understand this city, keep one name in mind: Maeda. From 1583 that family of lords ruled the domain of Kaga, the richest in Japan after …
2
The Teahouse Quarter
You are on the main street of Higashi Chaya. On both sides stand façades of dark wood, all alike, with blinds of very fine slats. Look at those slats: they are called kimusuko. From inside you can see the street; from outside you see almost nothing of the interior.
This district did not grow gradually. In 1820 the authorities of the Kaga domain gathered the teahouses scattered around the city here, east of the Asano River. At the same time they created a twin quarter to the west, beyond the Sai River. Hence the names Higashi, east, and Nishi, west.
A teahouse, in this sense, is not a café. I…
3
The Gold That Lets the Light Through
You are still in Higashi Chaya, but now look at the shop windows. Gilded chopsticks, lacquer boxes inlaid with gold, tea with golden flakes floating in it, even ice cream wrapped in a sheet of gold. It is not a tourist gimmick: it is the city's most famous industry.
Kanazawa produces almost all of Japan's gold leaf, more than ninety-nine per cent. The city's very name can be read as marsh of gold. A legend tells of a farmer who found nuggets while washing potatoes in a stream.
The process is an exercise in patience. Gold is mixed with a little silver and copper, rolled out and then beaten be…
4
The Castle of the Warrior Monks
You are standing before Kahoku-mon, one of the gates of Kanazawa Castle. White walls, grey stone, a gate of solid timber. In the Maeda era this was the castle's main entrance.
Before there was a castle, there was a temple on this hill. In 1488 followers of the Ikko sect of Buddhism overthrew the governor of Kaga Province and ruled the region for almost a century. It was one of the few places in Japan run by farmers and monks rather than samurai.
Their stronghold was a fortified temple, right here. In 1580 the troops of Oda Nobunaga captured it. Three years later Maeda Toshiie arrived, one of…
5
White Walls and Lead Roofs
You are facing an extremely long white building, two storeys high, with a tower at each end. This is the Gojikken Nagaya, a fortified storehouse linking the defensive turrets. The one on the corner, the Hishi Yagura, is diamond-shaped: none of its angles is a right angle.
Look at the roofs. The tiles are not dark clay, as almost everywhere in Japan, but a whitish grey. They are wood sheathed in lead. Over the years the lead oxidises and takes on that pale tone.
There is a story you will hear often: that the lead was there to be melted into bullets if the castle were besieged. It is a good le…
6
The Gate That Survived the Fire
You are beneath Ishikawa-mon, the castle's rear gate. And this one is genuine. It was rebuilt in 1788 after a great fire and has stood ever since.
Look at how it works. It is not a single gate but a square courtyard between two gateways. An enemy who forced the first one found himself trapped in this enclosure, surrounded by walls, with archers and musketeers firing from above.
Look at the stone walls at the base. The blocks are not all laid the same way: in different sections you can see rough fieldstones, stones cut to fit and stones dressed with precision. Kanazawa Castle is famous for th…
7
The Garden of Six Virtues
You are beside Kasumigaike Pond, at the heart of Kenroku-en. On the shore stands a stone lantern on two legs, one resting in the water and the other on a rock. It is the Kotoji-toro, and it appears in almost every photo of Kanazawa.
Its shape recalls the bridge that holds up the strings of a koto, the Japanese zither. Notice that the legs are not the same length. That deliberate imbalance is part of its beauty.
Kenroku-en is considered one of the three great gardens of Japan. It was not made all at once: the fifth Maeda lord began laying out a garden on this slope in the late seventeenth cen…
8
The Fountain Without Pumps and the River Brought from the Mountains
You are beside a jet of water that rises about three and a half metres from a stone basin. It may not look like much. But it is considered the oldest fountain in Japan, built in 1861.
It has no motor. It works purely by difference in height. Water comes through a pipe from Kasumigaike Pond, which lies higher up, and gains pressure as it descends. That is why the jet rises higher or lower depending on the level of the pond.
It is said to have been built as a test of a technique that could carry water up to the castle. What is certain is that the garden and the castle depended on the same wate…
9
The Round Museum and the Argentine Pool
You are in front of a low, round building made almost entirely of glass, surrounded by lawn. It is the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened in 2004. After so much timber and stone, the contrast is complete.
It was designed by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of the SANAA studio, who won the Pritzker Prize in 2010. The idea was that the museum should have no front and no back. You can enter from several sides, as you would a public square.
Inside, the galleries are white boxes of different sizes and heights, separated by corridors and light courts. Part of the building is fre…
10
The Shrine with Stained Glass
You are in front of a gate unlike any other in Japan. Below, three stone arches, almost European. Above, a wooden pavilion with windows of coloured glass. This is the Shinmon, the gate of Oyama Shrine.
The shrine is dedicated to Maeda Toshiie, founder of the domain, and to his wife Matsu. Matsu was a key figure: after Toshiie's death she agreed to live as a hostage in Edo, for some fourteen years, to prove the Maeda's loyalty to the Tokugawa.
The shrine was moved here in 1873, a few years after the fall of the shogunate. And the gate was completed in 1875, in the full fever of modernisation …
11
The Samurai Lanes
You are in Nagamachi, the district where the samurai in service to the Maeda lived. Narrow lanes, ochre earthen walls topped with tiles, wooden gateways and, alongside, a canal of clear water running fast.
Notice the streets: they bend, break off and narrow. This is not carelessness. The layout was designed to confuse an enemy who entered the city and slow his advance towards the castle.
Look at the walls. They are made of earth, and earth does not stand up well to snow. So in winter, from early December to March, they are covered with straw mats called komo. It is one of the classic images …
12
The Geisha Quarter Across the River
You have crossed the Sai River and are now in Nishi Chaya, the western teahouse quarter. It is a single short street, with the same finely slatted façades you saw in Higashi Chaya. But here there are hardly any crowds.
This district was born the same year as the other, in 1820, when the domain gathered the teahouses into designated zones on the edges of the city of the time. Kanazawa's two rivers marked those limits.
Locals gave these rivers nicknames. The Sai, wider and with a strong current, is called the male river. The gentler Asano is the female river. Both come down from the mountains …
13
The Temple of Traps
You are in front of Myoryu-ji, a Buddhist temple of the Nichiren school in the Teramachi district. From outside it looks like an ordinary two-storey temple. Everyone calls it Ninja-dera, the ninja temple. But no ninjas ever lived here.
The temple was established on this site in 1643 by order of the third Maeda lord, Toshitsune. It was the family's prayer temple. And Teramachi did not fill with temples by chance.
The Maeda grouped dozens of temples in this high ground beyond the Sai River, on the road in from the south. Their solid buildings, walls and broad grounds could be turned into a lin…
How long does the "Kanazawa: the City of Gold and Samurai That the Bombs Never Touched" audio tour take?
It has about 25 minutes of audio across 13 stops and a 6.62 km walking route (~1 h 40 min on foot). Plan roughly 2 h 15 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Market of the City That Was Spared" (coordinates 36.5714, 136.6563). 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 Kanazawa and pick "Kanazawa: the City of Gold and Samurai That the Bombs Never Touched". No account required to start.
Free app
No wifi needed · Spanish, English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean
