The Tourist-y Bit: Nagoya Castle

 Nagoya Castle - Basic Info 

Location 

Nagoya...

Opening Hours

9AM - 4.30PM

Cost

500 Yen (Adult)

Ellie's General Opinion - 6/10 (It's not bad... It's just not amazing)

Instagrammability  - 7/10 (more if you can bear to spend 1000 Yen on a gold ice cream) 

Stereotypical Cringey Tourist-ness - 10/10 (You can't call yourself a tourist if you haven't done Nagoya castle)

Cultural Appreciation Points  - 7/10 (There's definitely some culture here, so you could brag about how cultured you are having visited Nagoya Castle, but there's probably some more cultural things to do) 

Okay so this should’ve been written months ago when I actually visited the castle, but sometimes life gets in the way and honestly, review-style writing is not really my area so I put writing this off for a long time.

(Lil’ authors note out of the way, on with some actual content.)

Nagoya Castle is probably the big boy of tourism in Nagoya. I mean, if you look up things to do in Nagoya, this castle is at the top of the list. Which makes sense, with it being obviously an important castle, sharing the name of the city and everything.

So if you want to be a stereotypical tourist (and there is nothing wrong with that), of course Nagoya Castle is a bit of a necessity.

I’m going to be honest with you, I can’t actually remember much of my trip to Nagoya castle but I do remember an ice cream being sold for ¥1000 (£6.94 at the time of writing) which seemed a little overpriced for an ice cream. Then again, it was coated with edible gold (not sure how legit that is) on one side so maybe it would be worth the Instagram likes something like this could get. Nonetheless, I couldn’t bear to spend that much money on what was effectively a Mr Whippy, so I waved goodbye to that Instagram post.

The castle itself was, uh, a Japanese-y looking castle (thus concludes my knowledge of Japanese architecture). Apparently the gold dolphin thingys, or kinshachi, at the top of the castle are iconic but really that’s the only amazingly unique thing I could say  about the castle. I’m no expert though, so take this with a pinch of salt.

We walked around a little, it was hot weather so basically we were on the verge of death and not really appreciating the castle or its grounds, but I got some nice pictures of the castle from various angles. I also spent a long time trying to photograph a cat, but the cat was not cooperating.

As for the inside of the castle, I couldn’t say because it’s under renovation (though avoiding the scaffolding in photos was not too much of a problem thankfully) and even though I think there was a place you could go inside of, my family are veterans of Japanese castles and we’d have rather spent our time inside a Daiso, for the true cultural experience of Japan.

Quite truthfully, that’s pretty much all I have to say on the topic of Nagoya Castle, and I apologise for whoever’s in charge of tourism in Nagoya for not really promoting much about the castle... But I have to be honest to my audience.

Regarding actual, useful information, the castle is usually open from 9AM until 4.30PM and I don’t believe it would take anyone too long to look at it all, so don’t worry too much about maximising your time. Of course, getting there is always going to be fairly simple, Japan is probably the best place in the world for public transport. We took the subway, on the Meijo line getting of at the stop called Shiyakusho (City Hall). I believe there is the option of the Tsurumai line too, and some buses.

And while Nagoya Castle may not be a whole day out, or particularly exceptional for anyone already well-travelled in Japan, certainly it’s worth a visit. I believe that you can’t really say you’ve done touristy stuff in Nagoya if you haven’t done Nagoya Castle so if you’re aiming to get the full tourist experience, you may as well visit. Also it’s probably worth a visit if you’re actually interested in like castles and stuff, because personally I can look at them an think ‘oh pretty’ but that’s about it for me.