Hikone and Lake Biwa

Kansai, Japan · Lake, Town / small city

Hikone's keep is one of only twelve original wooden castle towers left standing in Japan and one of five designated National Treasures: finished in 1622 and never rebuilt. Around it lies a quiet former castle town of 110,000 with a lordly garden, a shopping street remade in old-town style, and the shore of Lake Biwa, the largest lake in the country, half an hour's walk away.

The essentials

Getting there

Train — Hikone Station sits on the JR Biwako Line (the Tokaido Main Line east of Kyoto). Direct 'special rapid' trains from Kyoto take 50 minutes and cost 1,170 yen, leaving roughly every 15 minutes; the same direct train from Osaka takes 1h30 and costs 1,980 yen. Going by shinkansen to Maibara plus a four-minute local hop (190 yen) cuts it to about 30 minutes from Kyoto (around 2,350 yen) or 45 from Osaka (around 4,700), but it rarely pays off. From Tokyo, a direct Hikari reaches Maibara in a little over two hours for about 12,000 yen, plus the local connection; Nozomi trains do not stop at Maibara, and no JR Pass covers the Nozomi anyway. From Nagoya it is about 1h20 on ordinary Tokaido Line trains changing at Ogaki or Maibara, or half an hour on a Hikari or Kodama to Maibara. Maibara is also the boundary between JR Central and JR West, so most JR West passes stop there and anything further east is paid separately. The castle is a straight 15-20 minute walk from the station, and the old quarter, Yume Kyobashi and Yonbancho are all walkable. The lakeshore is another 20-25 minutes on foot from the castle. For the lake itself and the temples on the eastern side of the valley you want a bicycle (the main rental counter is at Maibara Station, four minutes away by train) or a car. The Ohmi Railway leaves from the same station building and reaches Taga and Toyosato, but only two or three trains an hour and no JR pass covers it.

Frequently asked questions about Hikone and Lake Biwa

What to do in Hikone and Lake Biwa: 28 activities

• Hikone Castle: the original keep 2 h must-see

  One of only twelve original wooden keeps still standing in Japan and one of five designated National Treasures, since 1952: three storeys finished around 1606-07, within building works that began in 1604 and ran for twenty years, and never rebuilt, unlike most of the country's famous castles, which are concrete replicas put up in the 1950s and 60s. The combined ticket with Genkyuen garden costs 1,000 yen, it opens daily 8:30 to 17:00 with last entry at 16:30, and inside you climb very steep wooden stairs in your socks.

• Genkyuen Garden 1 h must-see

  A pond-and-stroll garden laid out in 1677 by the fourth lord of Hikone, Ii Naooki, at the foot of the castle hill, with the keep rising above the pines from almost every point on the path. It is included in the 1,000 yen combined ticket, or 400 yen on its own. At the Hoshotai teahouse, the room from which the lord received guests, they serve matcha with a sweet.

• Yume Kyobashi Castle Road 1.5 h must-see

  Some 350 metres of street running from the bridge over the castle's western moat, rebuilt since the 1990s with white walls, wooden lattices and black-tiled roofs in castle-town style: sweet shops, Omi beef croquettes to eat as you walk, soba, pottery and Hikonyan merchandise. It is a recreation rather than a preserved quarter, and worth knowing that. Nearly everything shuts between 17:00 and 18:00 and many places take a weekday off, so by night it is deserted.

• Autumn illumination of Genkyuen Garden 1.5 h only 15 days in mid-November

  For a couple of weeks in mid-November the garden reopens 18:00 to 21:00, last entry 20:30, with lit maples reflected in the pond and the keep floodlit behind. It costs 900 yen at the gate, 700 in advance, and 1,400 with the castle's evening opening added; weekends bring live koto music and tea is served at the Hoshotai pavilion for about 1,000 yen. In 2026 it ran 14 to 29 November.

• Cherry blossom along the castle moat 2 h only from late March to mid-April

  The grounds hold around 1,100 Somei Yoshino cherry trees, most of them lining the double moat, and during the cherry festival — 28 March to 16 April in 2026, with full bloom around 10 April — they are lit from 18:00 to 20:45 and the moat barges pass beneath the branches. Walking the moat circuit is free and possible at any hour; the castle interior still closes at 17:00 even when the paths outside stay busy late.

• Chikubushima Island 4.5 h booking Nagahama · 20 min

  An uninhabited sacred island two kilometres around in the northern lake, with Hogon-ji temple (number 30 on the Kansai Kannon pilgrimage), the Karamon gate, a National Treasure moved here from Toyotomi Hideyoshi's mausoleum in Kyoto, and a lookout where visitors throw clay discs into the water for a wish. The boat from Hikone Port has been suspended since 14 August 2026 with no restart date, so today you take the train 20 minutes to Nagahama and board the Biwako Kisen boat there: 3,800 yen return, half an hour each way, 50 to 110 minutes ashore depending on the season, plus a separate 600 yen island fee.

• Hikone Castle Museum 1.5 h

  A reconstruction of the castle's audience palace, immediately left of the main gate, holding the red armour of the Ii clan — Hikone's so-called red devils — along with swords, calligraphy and a noh stage still used for performances several times a year. Open 8:30 to 17:00 with last entry at 16:30; admission 700 yen, or 1,500 together with the castle and Genkyuen. Closed 25 to 31 December and on scattered days for exhibition changeovers.

• Hikone Port and the Matsubara pine shore 1.5 h

  About 25 minutes on foot from the castle, or ten by bike, you reach the water: Hikone Port, a kilometre of sand-and-gravel shore backed by pines at Matsubara, and across the water Takeshima island and the outline of Mount Ibuki. This is where the scale of Lake Biwa sinks in — 670 square kilometres, a sixth of the whole of Shiga Prefecture. Free, with no ticket booths or facilities, and almost empty at sunset.

• Omi beef 1.5 h

  Shiga's beef is one of Japan's three great wagyu and the one with the longest documented history: the lords of Hikone were already sending preserved beef to Edo when eating meat was frowned upon. It comes as sukiyaki, grilled or in a rice bowl, and the reference house in Hikone is Sennaritei, with a restaurant and butcher's shop on Yume Kyobashi itself. Lunch sets cut the price sharply; a proper dinner runs well past 8,000 yen a head.

• Trying funazushi, the original sushi 1 h

  Sushi's ancestor: nigorobuna carp from Lake Biwa, salted for months and then fermented inside cooked rice for a year or more, until the rice dissolves and the fish keeps on its own. It smells like very strong blue cheese and tastes sour and salty; it is sliced thin and eaten as a starter with sake or in broth, and it is worth knowing before you order that plenty of people do not take to it first time. A few slices in a restaurant run 800 to 1,500 yen, and a whole vacuum-packed fish tops 10,000 in town shops.

• Biwaichi: cycling around Lake Biwa 8 h booking

  The 200-kilometre loop around the lake, marked by blue arrows painted on the road, which most people ride over two or three days; the northern-lake variant is about 150. The main rental counter is at Maibara Station, four minutes by train from Hikone: open 9:00 to 17:00, closed Wednesdays and from mid-December to mid-February, reservation required, with about ten different drop-off points. A flat half-day stretch from Hikone up to Nagahama and back by train also works very well.

• Covered boat on the castle moat 1 h booking

  A roofed wooden barge circles the castle's inner moat in about fifty minutes, passing at the foot of the stone ramparts and under the cherry trees, leaving on the hour from the Genkyuen landing: 10:00 to 15:00 on weekdays and until 16:00 on weekends and holidays. It costs 1,300 yen, 1,500 during cherry season and 600 for children; it can be booked up to a month ahead and is cancelled in bad weather.

• Enryaku-ji and Mount Hiei 6 h Otsu · 105 min

  The mother monastery of the Tendai school, a World Heritage site and the seedbed of nearly all later Japanese Buddhism, is not in Hikone but in Otsu, and from here it is a good hour and three quarters door to door: Biwako Line to Yamashina, Kosei Line to Hieizan-Sakamoto, a fifteen-minute walk or short bus to the funicular, then eleven minutes on the Sakamoto Cable (1,660 yen return). Admission to the three precincts is 1,000 yen and closing time is 16:00. The Konpon-chudo has been under restoration since 2016, due to run to around 2031: it can still be visited, and a viewing stage lets you see it from eaves height.

• Lake Biwa Birdman Rally 5 h only the last weekend of July

  On the last weekend of July, on the Matsubara shore, mostly university teams launch gliders and pedal-powered aircraft off a ten-metre platform over the lake; the distance record is over 60 kilometres. Yomiuri Television has run it since 1977 and it has been held here since 1980; it is free to watch from the shore, and in 2026 it fell on 25 and 26 July. There is no shade: bring a hat, water and patience, because the gaps between flights are long.

• Meeting Hikonyan in person 0.5 h

  The castle's mascot, a white cat in a red samurai helmet who set off Japan's whole yuru-kyara craze in 2007, comes out daily at 13:30 in front of the keep and at 15:00 by the museum gate, half an hour each time, posing in silence because the character never speaks. Weekends and holidays add an 11:00 slot at Yonbancho Square. Rain or extreme heat changes the place and the length, so check the city website that same morning.

• Nagahama and the Black Wall district 3.5 h Nagahama · 20 min

  Twenty minutes north on the same JR line: a bank from 1900 painted black that the town saved from demolition in 1989 and turned into a glass gallery, and with it some thirty shops, workshops where you blow your own piece, cafés and the Hikiyama Museum with the floats used for the April festival's kabuki performed by children. It works as a half-day from Hikone, and it is also the port the Chikubushima boat now leaves from.

• Ryotan-ji temple and its gardens 1 h

  A Zen temple at the foot of Mount Sawayama, the Ii clan's family temple and for centuries a school for garden designers: it keeps the Fudaraku dry garden, forty-eight stones on white gravel in front of the main hall, and behind it a pond garden with a turtle island. It is also called the daruma temple, for the hundreds of red figures visitors leave there. Open 9:00 to 17:00 (16:00 in winter), 400 yen, about 25 minutes on foot from Hikone Station on the side away from the castle.

• Sawayama Castle ruins 2 h

  This 233-metre hill held the castle of Ishida Mitsunari, the general who lost at Sekigahara; the Ii dismantled it and reused its stone to build Hikone, so all that is left on top are earth terraces and a 360-degree view over the lake, the valley and the newer castle. The climb takes 30 to 40 minutes on a trail starting beside Ryotan-ji: dirt, roots and plenty of mud after rain, with no facilities at all.

• Taga Mantosai, the festival of ten thousand lanterns 3 h Taga · 16 min only 3-5 Aug

  From 3 to 5 August, Taga Shrine hangs some ten thousand paper lanterns bearing the names of those who offered them and lights them at dusk, with dances and food stalls along the approach. It is 16 minutes and 310 yen from Hikone on the Ohmi Railway, but check the last trains back, because service thins out badly after nine in the evening.

• Taga Taisha Shrine 2 h Taga · 16 min

  Shiga's most important shrine, dedicated to Izanagi and Izanami and known across the region as O-Taga-san: people come to pray for long life, and an old saying called it the father of the gods of Ise. Take the Ohmi Railway from Hikone Station changing at Takamiya — 16 minutes and 310 yen — with the torii five minutes from the station. The grounds are free, and the approach street sells itokirimochi, a striped rice cake cut with a silk thread.

• Tenbin turret and the castle stables 1 h

  The keep is not all that survives: on the climb stands the Tenbin-yagura, a symmetrical gate-turret — hence the name, 'balance scale' — over a bridge that could be dropped during a siege, and below it the Umaya, the only surviving stable of a Japanese castle, L-shaped with twenty-one stalls. Both are designated Important Cultural Properties. The stable lies outside the paid area, is free to enter, and hardly anyone goes in.

• The three mountain temples of eastern Lake Biwa 5 h Kora, Aisho y Higashiomi · 35 min

  Saimyo-ji, Kongorin-ji and Hyakusai-ji, three hillside monasteries founded between the 8th and 13th centuries, with National Treasure wooden halls and pagodas and maple gardens that turn wholly red in November. Admission is around 600 yen at each. Getting there is the problem: outside the autumn season it is effectively car or taxi, and in November a Kokoku Bus shuttle usually runs from Hikone Station, though you should confirm it for the current year.

• Yonbancho Square 1 h

  The old neighbourhood market, two minutes from Yume Kyobashi, remade as a set of lanes with a 1920s look: a fishmonger, a greengrocer, cafés, a Hikonyan shop and cheap food stalls. This is where people in Hikone actually shop rather than where tour groups go, and it works best at lunchtime and in the early afternoon.

• Gokurakuyu bathhouse, Hikone 2 h

  Hikone is not an onsen town and it is best not to expect one, but it does have this big neighbourhood bathhouse with a rock-lined outdoor pool, a carbonated bath and three kinds of sauna, where the city soaks after work. Open 6:00 to 1:00 almost year-round, 920 yen on weekdays and 1,020 at weekends and on holidays, with a canteen and a manga library. It is about ten minutes by car or taxi from the station: not walkable.

• Okamura Honke sake brewery, Toyosato 1.5 h booking Toyosato · 25 min

  An 1854 brewery that still presses its Kinkame sake with a wooden lever beam: visits are free, 9:00 to 17:00 year-round, tasting included, and it keeps a small museum of some two thousand brewing tools. Guided tours are booked by phone or form; without a booking you can still browse the shop and look around. Winter is the time to come, when brewing is in full swing, and there are two open-house festivals a year. It is a twenty-minute walk from Toyosato Station on the Ohmi Railway, the same stop as the old school.

• Rakurakuen, the Ii family's retirement villa 0.5 h

  Right next to Genkyuen and inside the same grounds, the pavilion where the lords of Hikone retired: dark timber, tatami and a curious hot-sand bathing room used as a medical treatment. Parts of the complex have been under phased restoration for years, but whatever is open costs nothing extra and is almost always empty while the queue builds at the keep.

• Swimming in Lake Biwa at Matsubara 3 h only 1 Jul - 31 Aug

  Matsubara was Hikone's bathing beach for decades, but the city repealed the ordinance in 2024 and there is no longer an official beach: no lifeguards, no showers, no supervision, and anyone who swims does so at their own risk. The shore is still open and the bottom is sand with a very gentle slope; the water is only warm from July to late August. This is lake swimming — no waves, no salt — 25 minutes on foot from the castle.

• Toyosato's old elementary school 1.5 h Toyosato · 25 min

  A 1937 primary school paid for by an Omi merchant who made his fortune at the Marubeni trading house and designed by William Merrell Vories, the American missionary architect who built half of Shiga: white concrete, vast classrooms and a staircase with the hare and the tortoise cast in bronze on the banister. Villagers fought off its demolition, and since 2009 it has been a pilgrimage site for fans of the anime K-On!, which copied its classrooms. Open 10:00 to 17:00, closed Mondays, free, and ten minutes on foot from Toyosato Station on the Ohmi Railway.

What only happens on specific dates

• Cherry blossom along the castle moat from late March to mid-April
• Lake Biwa Birdman Rally the last weekend of July
• Swimming in Lake Biwa at Matsubara 1 Jul - 31 Aug
• Taga Mantosai, the festival of ten thousand lanterns 3-5 Aug
• Autumn illumination of Genkyuen Garden 15 days in mid-November

Chains well with

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