Nagoya Castle was built in 1612 by Shogun Tokuga Ieyasu (if you saw the movie 'Shogun' from the 1980's--that was him, played by Mifune). It was destroyed during WWII and rebuilt in 1959. Click here for more
info. It is really, really huge! I'm afraid these pictures don't really capture the scale of it. The moat above goes all the way around the castle, maybe 1/4 to 1/2 mile on a side--those are full grown trees along the top of the wall, maybe 30-50 feet tall.
Here's the view of the cast from the rear, where it is closest to the outer moat, which is a river on this side.
Here's a shot of me inside the inner walls but still a couple hundred yards away.
That's Caitlin standing in front of the castle proper. On the very top you can just see one of the two gold dophin sculptures which are big symbols of Nagoya.
Here's a panorama shot of one of the inner corner towers--this is one of the original structures that survived the war.
Here's a shot of the Nagoya skyline from the top floor observation deck of the castle.
Here's me standing on top of one of the walls pictured in the first picture of the moat. I'm very pleased to be holding a reproduction of an "Ichi-ryo"--one gold coin like the ones used in the Shogun's time. If you've seen any 'Zatoichi" films, you might know that ichi-ryo was about the going rate for a cheap body-guard or hit-man, but not for Zatoichi, he got at least 5-ryo.
Nagoya Castle was built in 1612 by Shogun Tokuga Ieyasu (if you saw the movie 'Shogun' from the 1980's--that was him, played by Mifune). It was destroyed during WWII and rebuilt in 1959. Click here for more info. It is really, really huge! I'm afraid these pictures don't really capture the scale of it. The moat above goes all the way around the castle, maybe 1/4 to 1/2 mile on a side--those are full grown trees along the top of the wall, maybe 30-50 feet tall.
Here's the view of the cast from the rear, where it is closest to the outer moat, which is a river on this side. 
Here's a shot of me inside the inner walls but still a couple hundred yards away.
That's Caitlin standing in front of the castle proper. On the very top you can just see one of the two gold dophin sculptures which are big symbols of Nagoya.
Here's a panorama shot of one of the inner corner towers--this is one of the original structures that survived the war.
Here's a shot of the Nagoya skyline from the top floor observation deck of the castle.
Here's me standing on top of one of the walls pictured in the first picture of the moat. I'm very pleased to be holding a reproduction of an "Ichi-ryo"--one gold coin like the ones used in the Shogun's time. If you've seen any 'Zatoichi" films, you might know that ichi-ryo was about the going rate for a cheap body-guard or hit-man, but not for Zatoichi, he got at least 5-ryo.
