#Eda85daysinJapan | Chapter 4 (Hokuriku) | Kanazawa - Kanazawa Castle Park

🗓️  16 May – 13 June 2026

📍 Kanazawa Castle Park

Kanazawa Castle sits right in the middle of the city, next to Kenrokuen. This was the Maeda family’s place — Kaga, Noto, Etchū, the whole Hyakumangoku thing.

It started as a fortified temple. Then Maeda Toshiie entered in 1583, and that became the story the city still tells. There is no main keep now. Lightning burned it in 1602 and they just… never rebuilt it. Fires kept happening after that, so what you walk through today is half old, half put back together.

Ishikawa-mon is the one that actually stayed, rebuilt in 1788, facing Kenrokuen. White walls, lead-tiled roof — those tiles were also meant to be melted down for bullets if things went badly. Hishi Yagura and the long storehouse came back in 2001. Nezumitamon Gate and Bridge, toward Oyama Jinja, in 2020.

People call it a museum of stone walls, which sounds serious, but I liked it more as a shortcut and a loop. There are gardens inside too. After Meiji the army used it, then Kanazawa University, then it became a park. Most of it is free, which is probably why it slipped into my days so easily.

Walking around the castle became part of my daily routine. Some days I cut through on the way to Kenrokuen or Oyama. Some days I just went to walk the walls.

When I was there, there was still a lot of renovation going on because of the 2024 earthquake. Stone walls down, scaffolding up, stones waiting to be set back. They are also reconstructing the Ninomaru Palace, which used to sit at the heart of the castle.

It doesn’t feel like a castle with one big tower to climb. More like walking through walls and gates, with Kenrokuen on one side and the city on the other. In early June the Hyakumangoku Parade also comes in through Ishikawa-mon — those three days are a separate post.