At the foot of the Japanese Alps rises a black keep from the late sixteenth century, one of only twelve in Japan that keep their original structure. It was built for war, nearly sold for scrap in the Meiji era and saved by the townspeople themselves. Thirteen stops between the moat where the crow castle is reflected, the drum gate and its giant stone, the black gate, the gun ports, the hidden floor and the sixty-degree stairs, the turret built for moon viewing, the men who rescued it, the school the city paid for, the street of frogs by the river, the shrine of four gods, the black-and-white storehouses of Nakamachi, the old wooden college at Agata no Mori and a merchant family's museum of ukiyo-e prints. Approximate audio duration: 23 minutes.
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Matsumoto: el castillo cuervo que se salvó de la subasta y del derrumbe
Al pie de los Alpes japoneses se levanta un torreón negro de fines del siglo XVI, uno de los doce que conservan su estructura original en todo Japón. Lo construyeron para la guerra, casi lo venden como leña en la era Meiji y lo salvaron los propios vecinos. Trece paradas entre el foso donde el castillo cuervo se refleja, la puerta del tambor y su piedra gigante, la puerta negra, las troneras para arcabuces, el piso escondido y la escalera de sesenta grados, la torre para mirar la luna, los hombres que lo rescataron, la escuela que pagó la ciudad, la calle de las ranas junto al río, el santuario de los cuatro dioses, los depósitos blancos y negros de Nakamachi, el viejo colegio de madera de Agata no Mori y el museo de grabados ukiyo-e de una familia de comerciantes. Duración aproximada de audio: 23 minutos.
Tour stops
13 stops · ~23 min of audio · 10.68 km on foot (~2 h 40 min walking) · about 3 h 15 min in total
You are standing by the moat on the south side. Ahead, the black keep is doubled in the water. Behind it, on a clear day, rise the snowy peaks of the Northern Alps.
The Japanese call it Karasu-jo, the crow castle. It is a popular nickname, earned by the colour of its walls. It also makes a neat contrast with Himeji, the white castle, known as the heron.
Look at the black boards on the lower walls. They are coated in lacquer, which is renewed from time to time. Above them, white plaster. That play of black and white is what makes it unmistakable.
The keep in front of you was finished around …
2
The Drum Gate and the Lord's Stone
You are facing the Taikomon, the drum gate. Above it stood a turret with a drum and a bell. They were used to signal orders and mark the hours for the whole garrison.
This gate controlled access to the castle's second enclosure. What you see is a reconstruction finished in 1999, built with traditional techniques from old plans and excavations.
Look at the stone wall to the right of the entrance. There is one huge rock, far larger than the rest. This is the Genba stone, the biggest in the whole castle.
It is named after Ishikawa Yasunaga, the lord who built the keep, whose title was Genba no…
3
The Black Gate and the Stone Trap
In front of you is the Kuromon, the black gate. It was the main entrance to the inner enclosure, the honmaru, where the keep stood and the lord lived. Its name comes from its colour and its rank: the most important gate.
As you pass through, notice that you do not walk straight in. First comes one gate, then a small square courtyard walled in on all sides, and only then a second gate set at an angle.
That courtyard is called a masugata. It is a trap. An enemy who forced the first gate found himself boxed into a tight space, surrounded by defenders firing from above.
The inner gate was rebui…
4
A Castle Designed for Muskets
You are on the first floor of the keep. Look at the beams and pillars. Much of this timber is the original wood from the late sixteenth century, darkened by more than four hundred years.
Notice the small square and rectangular openings in the walls. They are loopholes. The higher ones were for arrows. The others were for muskets.
There are more than a hundred across the whole complex. This castle was built after firearms had already transformed warfare in Japan. Matchlocks had arrived with the Portuguese in 1543, and within fifty years they were being made by the thousand.
Look, too, along …
5
The Floor You Cannot See from Outside
You are climbing inside the keep. From outside you counted five roofs. But inside there are six floors. One of them is hidden.
It is the third. It is tucked under the eaves of a roof and has almost no windows, so light barely gets in. It is thought to have served as storage and as a shelter for the defenders during an attack.
Look at the stairs. Some rise at up to sixty-one degrees, almost a ladder. They were built that way on purpose: they took up less space and slowed down any enemy trying to climb.
Keep going to the sixth floor, the highest, about thirty metres above the ground. From her…
6
A Turret for Watching the Moon
You are in the low wing on the south-east side, the Tsukimi Yagura, the moon-viewing turret. Notice the difference from what you have just walked through. There are no loopholes here and no gloom.
The panels open on three sides. A red-lacquered railing runs all the way round. It is a viewing pavilion, made for sitting and watching the moon over the moat.
This part was added some forty years after the keep, around the mid-1630s. It was commissioned by Matsudaira Naomasa, a grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had become lord of Matsumoto.
Think about that for a moment. The keep was built to watc…
7
The Townspeople Who Would Not Let It Fall
You are in the garden of the inner enclosure, with the keep behind you. That it still stands is no accident. It is the work of two people from Matsumoto.
In 1868 the shogunate fell and the Meiji era began. Feudal castles passed to the new government, which saw them as useless. Across the country they were dismantled or sold for timber.
In 1872 Matsumoto's keep was put up for auction and came close to being demolished. A local merchant, Ichikawa Ryozo, rallied support to save it. He staged exhibitions inside the keep itself and, with the proceeds and the help of other townspeople, managed to …
8
The School the Townspeople Paid For
In front of you is the former Kaichi School. Notice the mixture: white walls imitating stone, glass windows, an octagonal tower on top. And over the entrance, a balcony with carved clouds and two angels holding up a sign.
It opened in 1876, only a few years after the Meiji government created a compulsory school system for the whole country. It was one of the first modern primary schools in Japan.
It was designed by a local master carpenter, Tateishi Kiyoshige. He had never studied architecture in the West. He travelled to Tokyo and Yokohama, looked at the buildings foreigners were putting up…
9
The Street of Frogs
You are on Nawate Street, a narrow lane of wooden stalls hugging the bank of the Metoba River. Look around. There are frogs everywhere: statues, signs, toys.
At the entrance you will see a big stone frog dressed as a samurai. It is the street's emblem. The locals chose it for two reasons.
The first: kajika frogs once lived in this river, famous for their clear song. They disappeared when the water became polluted. The street adopted them as a memory and as a wish that the river would run clean again.
The second is a pun. In Japanese, frog is kaeru. And kaeru also means to return. A frog by …
10
The Four Gods of Wishes
You are in front of Yohashira Shrine. Pass under the torii and walk towards the main hall. Even though it sits in the middle of town, the street noise fades almost at once.
Its name means four pillars. In Japanese, gods are counted with the word for pillar. Four deities are worshipped here together, among them Amaterasu, the sun goddess from whom, according to tradition, the emperors descend.
It is not an old shrine. It was founded in the 1870s, in the first years of the Meiji era. The new government wanted to turn Shinto into a state religion centred on the emperor, and it promoted shrines …
11
The Storehouses That Beat the Fire
You are on Nakamachi Street. Look at the facades on both sides. Many are kura, thick-walled storehouses plastered white, with a lattice of black diagonal lines in a diamond pattern along the lower walls.
The pattern is called namako-kabe. Flat tiles are fixed to the wall, and the joints are covered with raised bands of white plaster. They protected the wall from rain and from fire.
This was the street of Matsumoto's merchants: sake, cloth, soy sauce, goods coming into and out of the mountains. The storehouses held each family's stock and its wealth.
In 1888 a great fire swept through much o…
12
The Wooden College Among the Trees
You are in Agata no Mori Park, the Agata woods. Walk along the avenue of trees to the long painted wooden building with a clock tower in the middle.
This is the former Matsumoto Higher School. Its main building was completed in 1920. Today it is protected as an Important Cultural Property of Japan.
Higher schools were the gateway to the imperial universities. The boys who came here, around seventeen years old, were destined to become the nation's elite: officials, doctors, scientists, writers.
They had a reputation as rebels. They wore black capes, battered caps and wooden clogs, and spent …
13
A Merchant Family's Floating World
You are in front of the Japan Ukiyo-e Museum, on the western side of Matsumoto. It is a modern building of simple lines, completed in 1982. It was designed by the architect Kazuo Shinohara.
Inside is one of the largest private collections of ukiyo-e in the world. These are woodblock prints from the Edo period: kabuki actors, courtesans, wrestlers, landscapes.
The collection was built up over generations by the Sakai family, merchants of Matsumoto. They began buying prints in the nineteenth century, when they were a cheap, popular product sold in the street.
Ukiyo-e means pictures of the flo…
How long does the "Matsumoto: the Crow Castle That Survived the Auction and the Lean" audio tour take?
It has about 23 minutes of audio across 13 stops and a 10.68 km walking route (~2 h 40 min on foot). Plan roughly 3 h 15 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Crow in the Water" (coordinates 36.2377, 137.9684). 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 Matsumoto and pick "Matsumoto: the Crow Castle That Survived the Auction and the Lean". No account required to start.
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No wifi needed · Spanish, English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean
