Asago

Kansai, Japan · Town / small city, Mountain

A castle with no castle: on the summit of a 353-metre hill all that remains is the stepped stone walling of an enclosure some 450 metres long, abandoned in 1600 when its last lord was ordered to disembowel himself. On cold clear autumn mornings the valley fills with mist underneath and the walls are left floating, which is where the nicknames castle in the sky and Japanese Machu Picchu come from. The photograph is not taken from up there but from the hill opposite. And in the same valley, fifteen kilometres south, is the other half of the story: the silver the shogunate, the imperial household and then Mitsubishi took out of Ikuno until 1973, the tin of Akenobe that once made up 95% of Japan's output, the ore-dressing plant stepped down the hillside at Mikobata, and a toy-sized train whose fare was one yen.

The essentials

Getting there

Car — Takeda has its own station on the JR Bantan line and from there the castle is about 40 minutes on foot up the slope; there is also a bus to the castle stop plus around 20 minutes' walking. That works for a daytime visit. For the sea of clouds it does not: you need to be up there before dawn, and then the car decides. The three car parks below are free — a hundred spaces at Yamashiro-no-sato, a hundred at the Takeda-jo and Ritsuunkyo one, a hundred and fifty at the town one — but the city warns that on October and November weekends and holidays the nearest fills by around two or three in the morning, that queueing on the road is not allowed and that parking on farm tracks or private land is forbidden. From any of them it is 40 to 50 minutes uphill on foot. There is an early-morning shuttle bus on November weekends and holidays only. The mines are spread out: Ikuno about fifteen kilometres south with a station on the same line, and Mikobata and Akenobe west over mountain roads with no railway. From 4 January to the end of February the castle is closed.

What it is genuinely strong in

🔭 Viewpoints & panoramas

Frequently asked questions about Asago

What to do in Asago: 11 activities

• Ritsuunkyo, the hill opposite 2.5 h must-see Ritsuunkyo, Wadayama, Asago · 15 min

  The photograph of the floating castle is not taken from the castle: it is taken from here, on the flank of Mount Asago directly opposite, and the prefecture itself recommends it. There are three viewpoints at different heights and the difference between them is legwork: the third is a five-minute walk, the second ten and the first, along with the Ritsuunkyo terrace, about forty. From the terrace you can also photograph the path of light that points at the castle. It is not an entrance fee but a contribution to maintaining the site: ¥300 from high-school age, ¥250 for groups of twenty (it was ¥200 until March 2020). And it has a second season almost nobody mentions: it is a prefectural natural park and one of northern Kinki's great cherry-blossom places, known as the Yoshino of Tajima, with mountain cherries, somei-yoshino and old trees of over three hundred years.

• The sea of clouds, and when it happens 2 h must-see only from late September to early December

  The prefecture states the condition in one line: properly clear, cold mornings from late September to early December. That means getting up very early, and the castle's hours are built for it: from June to 6 December it opens at 5:00. The rest of the year there is no sea of clouds to speak of, because from March to May it opens at 8:00 and from 7 December to 3 January only 10:00 to 15:00; from 4 January to the end of February it closes entirely. A note on the hours: the city gives the spring last entry as 16:30 and the prefecture as 17:30; the city wins, since it is the one opening the gate. And it should be said: the mist is guaranteed on no day at all, and what you see without it still justifies the climb.

• The walls of Takeda castle 2 h must-see

  The odd thing about Takeda is not that there is a castle up there: there is not, and you still read the whole thing. What remains is the stepped stone walling around the summit, and the national dossier says it plainly: it is exceptional among mountain castles that keep their stonework. The enclosure measures about fifty ken east to west and two hundred and fifty north to south, roughly ninety metres by four hundred and fifty, with the north Sennin-jiki at one end and the south one at the other looking down the Maruyama valley; the dossier itself likens the plan to a bird with its wings spread. The history is documented and ends badly: the Yamana built it around 1443, seven generations of the Otagaki held it, it passed to Hashiba Hidenaga after the 1580 invasion of Tajima and in 1585 Akamatsu Hirohide moved in. Hirohide fought for the western army at Sekigahara, was then ordered to attack Tottori castle, was blamed for the fire in its town and disembowelled himself at Shinkyo-ji. The castle was abandoned that same year, 1600. A national historic site since 8 September 1943, extended on 23 July 2009. Five hundred yen from high-school age, free up to junior high.

• Climbing before dawn without it going wrong 2 h

  You do not drive to the top. From any of the three car parks the walk up is 40 to 50 minutes, and on an autumn morning you should count them generously. There are four routes: the west trail from Yamashiro-no-sato, asphalted, about 40 minutes, with taxis available from there; the trail behind Takeda station and the Omeyone shrine trail, also about 40, the latter with 460 steps; and the south trail, asphalted, about 50. The warning that really matters comes from the city: on October and November weekends and holidays the nearest car park can be full by two or three in the morning, you may not queue on the road waiting for a space, and parking on farm tracks or private land is forbidden. If you arrive late, the other two car parks are down in the valley and hold two hundred and fifty between them. In November an early-morning bus runs up from below on weekends and holidays.

• The Ikuno silver mine 2 h Ikuno, Asago · 25 min

  It is said to have opened in the year 807, but no document supports that; serious working starts in 1542. From there the list of owners reads like a summary of Japanese economic history: Oda, Toyotomi and Tokugawa as a mine under direct control of power, a state mine from 1868, property of the Imperial Household Ministry from 1889, and sold to Mitsubishi in 1896, the first time it went into private hands. It closed in 1973. Today you walk about a kilometre of tourist gallery with Edo-period chisel marks in the rock, scenes of Meiji mining and the drum of the old winding gear; the visit takes around forty minutes. Twelve hundred yen for adults and six hundred for schoolchildren, free below primary age. The hours change four times a year: 9:10 to 17:20 from April to October, until 16:50 in November, 9:40 to 16:20 from December to February and 9:40 to 16:50 in March, with last entry forty minutes before. It only closes on Tuesdays from December to February.

• The ore-dressing plant on the hillside 1.5 h Sanou, Asago · 35 min

  An installation stepped down the mountainside where the ore coming from the Akenobe mine, six kilometres over the hill, was separated by gravity and flotation to yield zinc, copper and tin. The city says it boasted the highest output in the Orient. The big plant went up in 1919 and stopped working in 1987 when Akenobe closed; the building is now partly demolished and what remains is the terracing, the line of the incline that joined top to bottom, and one thickener. Beside it stands the old Mouse house, built around 1871-72 for the French engineer who was Coignet's right hand and ended up chief engineer of the Ikuno mine; it was moved here in 1886 and is now a museum and photographic studio. The outdoor site is free and never closes, being open air; the visitor centre opens 10:00 to 17:00, closes on Wednesdays, and runs paid guided tours by appointment.

• The Akenobe tin mine 1.5 h booking Akenobe, Yabu · 40 min

  What came out here was not silver but tin, and a lot of it: Yabu city says it was the country's leading tin mine and that in the 1970s it accounted for 95% of national output. It closed in 1987, when a strong yen made importing cheaper, leaving much of the ore underground. You can visit 650 metres of tunnel with a guide and a helmet, on tours of about an hour: twelve hundred yen from high-school age and six hundred for schoolchildren, guide included, booking three days ahead. Inside it is cold all year round, between ten and fourteen degrees according to the city and between twelve and thirteen according to the tourism association, so welcome in August and a reason for a coat in January. From April to the first Sunday of November there is also a Sunday tour, 10:00 to 15:00, with no booking.

• The mineral museum, and its disputed price 1 h Ikuno, Asago · 25 min

  Next to the gallery there is a mineral museum with specimens mined in Japan and a full-size reproduction of an Edo-period tunnel you crawl through, which is what the children take away from here. On what it costs, the two local sources disagree: the city notes an extra hundred yen from primary age and the Ikuno tourism association says entry is free with the mine ticket. It is a hundred yen, so hardly a worry, but worth knowing you may be asked for it.

• The mining town and the slag-block walls 1.5 h Ikuno, Asago · 25 min

  The town below the mine is protected in its entirety as a national important cultural landscape: the official gazette published it on 18 March 2014, after the council's recommendation the previous 15 November. Being precise about what came first matters, because it gets told wrong: according to the city's education board, it was the first in Hyogo prefecture, and the first in the country selected while still a working mining town. What is protected takes in the upper part — open-cut workings, the Edo-period mabu tunnels, the washing ponds in the bed of the Ichikawa river — and the lower: the mountain-god shrine, the temple quarter and the houses of the agents and the official innkeepers. And one thing you will see nowhere else: the smelting slag was pressed into blocks, karami-ishi, and the town's foundations, walls, channels and retaining walls were built with it. You walk and you look; there is no ticket office.

• The one-yen train 1 h Akenobe, Yabu · 40 min only from April to November, one day a month, and more in May, July and August

  The Meishin line joined Akenobe to Mikobata, some six kilometres, and opened in 1929 to carry ore. From 1952 it carried passengers too, and the ticket cost one yen: that is where the name it is known by across Japan comes from. Passenger service ended in 1985 and the line was lifted in 1987. What remains is a 150-metre loop on the one-yen train ground, where the Kurogane carriage, completed in 1949, runs pulled by a battery locomotive. A seat still costs one yen, but you pay to get into the site: three hundred yen from high-school age and one yen for junior high and below, and the day's ticket lets you ride as often as you like. It runs from April to November, one fixed day a month, with extra dates in May, July and August.

• The road of the silver carts 1.5 h

  The three mines and the castle are not next to each other by chance: a road links them, which the state recognised as Japan Heritage number 45, in 2017, under the title of the silver cart road and the ore road, seventy-three kilometres of wheel-rut. It comes in two stretches. The silver cart road was finished in 1876 and joined Shikama port, now Himeji port, to the Ikuno mine: forty-nine kilometres of carriageway built on purpose for horse-drawn carts, on the shortest and flattest line possible and able to bear the weight of ore, which has earned it the name of Japan's first high-speed industrial road. North of Ikuno the ore road continues, twenty-four kilometres crossing the watershed and linking Mikobata and Akenobe, copper and tin, with Nakase, gold. Six municipalities applied for it together.

What only happens on specific dates

• The one-yen train from April to November, one day a month, and more in May, July and August
• The sea of clouds, and when it happens from late September to early December

Chains well with

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