Izushi Castle Town

Izushi 出石町

Izushi is a small town, now part of Toyooka City, in northern Hyogo that was in earlier times home to a castle/ The ruins of the castle and some reconstructed turrets can be visited, and enough of the town's original architecture remains for it to be registered as a reservation District;

One of the icons of the town, appearing on the draincovers for instance, is the Shinkoro Clock Tower, built in 1871 on the former stone base of a castle turret/ At first it housed a large drum used to mark time. but in 1881 a Dutch clock was installed. It is said to be the oldest clock tower in Japan.

A lot of the historical district is given over to tourist-related gift shops and eateries, and I previously posted a series of photos of these shopfronts This time some different views.

There was a really interesting shop, very much Showa nostalgic, with lot of products from the 70's.... more like a museum than a shop....

Away from the main shopping street there was also some nice traditional architecture, like these earthen-walled storehouses connected to the loca lsake brewery.

Izushi is also famous for soba noodles, with a staggering number of soba restaurants for a town its size. Several of the shop windows show the noodle makers plying their trade.

Shopfronts of Izushi Castle Town

Shopfronts of Izushi Castle Town

Izushi in northern Hyogo is a former castle town that has enough of its traditional architecture left remaining to qualify as a Preservation District. The actual title is Groups of Traditional Buildings, but I prefer preservation district and often historic streetscape.

 

Before showing some general views of the district I thought I would show you one specific feature of traditional Japanese architecture that I quite like, the frontages with their pleasing ratios and composition.

The top photo is a sake brewery. The second a touristy shop selling souvenirs, and the third a soba-restaurant. There are an inordinate number of little soba noodle restaurants in this little town, and several shop windows show the noodles being made by hand.

Most of the shops and restaurants have the noren hanging curtains.

There vis not much left of the castle, but I did post on it earlier.

Shop Japan

Arikoyama Inari Shrine

The shrine was established to protect the castle built by the Yamana Clan on top of the mountain at the end of the 16th century.

A few years later the Yaman lost the domain and their replacements dismantled the castle and constructed it at the base of the mountain, now known as Izushi Castle.

It seems the shrine was disestablished, probably as the new lords built several shrines within the new castle grounds, however it was re-established in the early 19th century.

It is now the most popular shrine in the central part of the old castle town of Izushi, 

Izushi Castle

 

Izushi Castle in northern Hyogo was built in 1604 by Koide Yoshihide after he took of the domain formerly controlled by the Yamana Clan. The Yamana had built a small castle on the mountaintop, and Yoshhide built fortifications down at the base of the mountain.

A few years later the Tokugawa government outlawed domains having more than one castle so Yoshihide dismantled the castle on top of the mountain and strengthened the defences of the lower castle, although he never built a keep. A path goes up to the top of the mountain to where the earlier castle stood.

A town, Izushi, grew up around the castle. Like most Japanese castles it was dismantled in the first years of the Meiji Period, though in 1968 two turrets, yagura in Japanese were reconstructed and later still the castle gate.

There are now two shrines in the cstle grounds, and from the castle great views looking over the old castle town and to the north.

Hiyoriyama Seacoast

The Hiyoriyama Seacoast is a stretch of scenic coastline in Toyooka in northern Hyogo around the mouth of the Maruyama River.

It is part of the UNESCO Global Geopark of San'n Kaigan that stretches from Tottori to Kyoto.

There are numerous sites in the Toyooka area included in the Geopark including the town and coastal area of Takeno.

It's a fairly scenic and dramatic stretch of coast, though to my mind we have better further west.....

Palace of the Dragon King

Nochigashima is a tiny, rocky islet just off the Hiyoriyama Coast in northern Hyogo. It is home to a collection of structures with a distinct Chinese style. They were built in the 1950's to memorialize an ancient local fairy tale/legend.

The story dates back to the earliest writings in Japan, the Manyoshu, Nihon Shoki, and the Fudoki. Like all such stories it exists in many forms and has been embellished over the centuries but its basic story contains elements familiar to many similar stories around the world.

Urashima Taro was a local fisherman who saved a turtle. He was rewarded by being taken down under the sea to the palace of the Dragon King and was entertained by one of his daughters, a beautiful princess. After a few days he decided to return home. Before keaving the princess gave hima jewelled box but told him never to open it.

Whenhe returned to the surface he discovered that in the few days he had spent in the undersea world  a hundred years had passed up on the surface. He opened the box and suddenly transformed into a very old man. Another version has him transforming into a crane. Both the turtle and crane are Daoist symbols of longevity very prevalent in Japanese culture and art.

Takeno

Japan has almost 30,000 kilometers of coastline, which ranks it 7th in the world, so it is not surprising that it has thousands of coastal settlements. Takeno is a small town on the Sea of Japan coast in Hyogo.

There is a lovely, white sandy beach that is popular in the summer. Takeno is part of the UNESCO San'in Kaigan Global Geopark.

Now still operating as a fishing harbor, in former times it was a stop along the Kitamaebune trade route that ran all the way down the Japan Sea Coast from Hokkaido, round through the straits at Shimonoseki and then through the Inland Sea to Osaka.

In many ways it is typical of such seaside villages, with narrow alleys between weatherbeaten wooden houses. Pleasant enough for a stroll and exploration