Inuyama

Chubu, Japan · Town / small city

A castle town of 72,000 half an hour from Nagoya, with the wooden keep that history left standing instead of rebuilding it in concrete, a tea house designated a National Treasure, and, twenty minutes away by bus, a kilometre-long open-air museum holding sixty Meiji-era buildings moved here from all over Japan.

The essentials

Getting there

Train — The Meitetsu Inuyama Line, a private railway that no JR Pass covers. From Meitetsu Nagoya — its own station, under the department store next to Nagoya JR station — direct trains leave every few minutes: 25-32 minutes and 630 yen on an express (kyuko) or a limited express in an ordinary car; the reserved µ car costs 450 yen more and is unnecessary. Some direct trains run from Chubu Centrair Airport on the same network, around an hour. From Kyoto or Osaka, take the shinkansen to Nagoya (36 minutes and about 5,900 yen from Kyoto; the Nozomi is fastest but no JR Pass covers it) and change to the Meitetsu; from Tokyo, 1h40 by shinkansen plus the half hour on the Meitetsu. Inuyama station is a 15-20 minute walk from the castle along Honmachi, the old castle-town street, and the whole historic centre is walkable; the next station, Inuyama-yuen, is closer to the Kiso riverbank and Urakuen. Meiji Mura, Little World and the Monkey Park all lie within the municipality but out of town and in different directions: Meitetsu buses from the east exit of Inuyama station, 20 minutes and about 500 yen, one or two an hour, with no link between them, so only one fits in a day. Meitetsu sells combined train-and-admission tickets from Nagoya that usually pay off. The JR alternative (Takayama Line to Unuma and a walk across the bridge) exists, but it is slow, infrequent and almost nobody uses it.

Frequently asked questions about Inuyama

What to do in Inuyama: 27 activities

• Inuyama Castle 1.5 h must-see

  One of only twelve original wooden keeps still standing in Japan and one of five designated National Treasures: it has never been rebuilt, unlike the castles of Osaka, Nagoya or Okayama, which are post-war concrete replicas. You climb in stocking feet up near-vertical wooden stairs to an open outer gallery with no glass, above the cliff over the Kiso River. Open 9:00-17:00 (last entry 16:30), closed 29-31 December, 1,000 yen; a combined ticket with the city museum and Dondenkan costs 1,200 yen, cash only at the castle ticket window.

• Meiji Mura Museum 5 h must-see Meiji Mura, Inuyama · 20 min

  Sixty Meiji-era buildings dismantled across Japan and reassembled along a kilometre of hillside beside Lake Iruka: churches, the Kanazawa prison, merchant houses, a lighthouse, a hospital, Soseki's house. Admission 2,500 yen (1,500 high school, 700 elementary and middle school); open 9:30-17:00 March to October, until 16:00 in November and 10:00-16:00 in winter, with irregular closures, mostly on weekdays in the cold season. Meitetsu bus from the east exit of Inuyama station: 20 minutes, 500 yen, one or two an hour. An hour does not come close: half a day is the honest minimum and a full day is not too much.

• Urakuen Garden and the Jo-an Tea House 1 h must-see

  Jo-an is one of only three tea houses in Japan designated National Treasures. Oda Uraku, younger brother of Nobunaga and a pupil of Sen no Rikyu, built it in 1618 in the grounds of Kennin-ji in Kyoto; it later passed through the Mitsui family and arrived here in 1972. On an ordinary visit you see it only from outside, walking around it through the garden, alongside the shoin of the former Shoden-in. Admission 1,500 yen (800 for children), 9:30-17:00 with last entry at 16:30, closed Wednesdays; matcha and a sweet at the Koan pavilion costs 600 yen extra.

• Inuyama Festival 5 h only the first Saturday and Sunday of April

  On the first weekend of April, thirteen three-storey floats are hauled up the slope to Haritsuna Shrine at the foot of the castle, and each performs the routine of its wooden automaton. At dusk 365 candle lanterns are fitted to every float and they come back down through the cherry blossom. It has been held since 1635 and is one of the 33 float festivals UNESCO inscribed in 2016; the parade is free and watched from the street, with no paid stands advertised, and lodging in Inuyama sells out months ahead.

• Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel Lobby 1 h Meiji Mura, Inuyama · 20 min

  The facade and central lobby of Tokyo's Imperial Hotel, finished by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1923, saved from demolition in 1968 and rebuilt here. Carved Oya stone, brick, and that layered geometry of pools and galleries at shifting heights you will not find in any other Wright building left standing; there is a café inside. It sits at the far end of the Meiji Mura grounds, at the end of the kilometre-long walk, so allow time for it or ride the internal tram.

• Honmachi Castle Town Street 2 h

  The 800 metres from the station to the castle keep the old castle-town layout and a handful of merchant houses and storehouses turned into shops. It is a street for eating as you walk: soy-glazed dango, gohei-mochi, croquettes, gold-leaf sweets, skewered mochi balls. Almost everything shuts at 17:00 and many places take a weekday off, so the street empties out by early evening; on weekends and in cherry blossom season, by contrast, it is packed.

• Night Cormorant Fishing on the Kiso River 2 h booking only 1 Jun - 15 Oct

  From 1 June to 15 October, roofed boats leave the Inuyama-yuen landing at dusk and pull right alongside the usho, the fishermen in ceremonial dress who work twelve cormorants on leashes while a basket of fire burns at the bow. The castle stays floodlit above the cliff. There are viewing-only plans and plans with dinner on board, eel being the classic dish; book by phone or online, as summer fills up.

• Cherry Blossom at the Castle and on the Riverbank 2 h

  From late March to early April the castle hill, the grounds of Haritsuna Shrine and the Kiso bank fill with somei-yoshino, and from the fourth-floor gallery of the keep you look down on the treetops over the roofs of the castle town. There is no organised festival and no night illumination of the blossom, so it is hanami of the walk-and-look kind; it overlaps with the float festival, and the town then becomes impossible.

• City Museum and Karakuri Puppet Hall 1 h

  Each of Inuyama's thirteen floats carries a wooden automaton driven by whalebone springs, strings and cams, and here you see the mechanisms from the inside, with the workshop of Tamaya Shobei, ninth of his line of automaton makers, built into the museum. Adults 300 yen, children free, 9:00-17:00 (last entry 16:30), on Honmachi street; it closes only from 29 to 31 December and during exhibition changeovers.

• Daytime Cormorant Fishing 1.5 h booking only 1 Jun - 15 Oct

  Inuyama is the only place in Japan where ukai is also staged in broad daylight, and that changes the experience considerably: you see the cormorants, the knots on the leashes and the fisherman working a fish out of a bird's throat, instead of guessing at silhouettes through smoke and firelight. It works better with children and with anyone unwilling to eat dinner on a boat at ten at night. Same season as the night version, 1 June to 15 October, also by reservation.

• Dondenkan Float Hall 0.5 h

  A storehouse on Honmachi street displaying four of the thirteen Inuyama festival floats at full size: three storeys, over eight metres, with all 365 lanterns mounted and lighting that simulates the night of the parade. The name comes from the donden, the sharp ninety-degree pivot the bearers use to swing a float around a corner. Admission 100 yen, 9:00-17:00 (last entry 16:30), closed 29-31 December.

• Hakutei Hot Spring Above the River 2 h

  Inuyama has a single natural hot spring, Hakutei no Yu, alkaline water, and it surfaces at the hotel built inside the grounds of Urakuen, which reopened in 2022 after years closed: an outdoor bath leaning over the Kiso and rooms facing either the keep or the tea house. The bath is set up for overnight guests and no day-use is advertised, so ask before counting on it without a room booking.

• Inside the Jo-an Tea House 1 h booking

  Urakuen runs a guided session nearly every month that does go inside Jo-an, plus a longer one four times a year that adds the painted sliding doors of the former Shoden-in. Book ahead by phone or through the Urakuen website; places are few, dates are published month by month, and the fee is separate from garden admission. It is the only way to set foot inside one of the three National Treasure tea houses.

• Jakko-in, the Maple Temple 2 h

  The oldest temple in the old province of Owari, founded in 654, clinging to a slope above the Kiso River among about a thousand maples. You climb 320 zigzagging stone steps, or take the Yasuragi-maru slope car, which covers the ninety metres of ascent in four minutes for a separate fee. The grounds are free, 8:00-17:00. The second half of November is the best autumn colour in the area; the rest of the year it is nearly empty. Twenty minutes on foot from Inuyama-yuen station.

• Japanese Rhine Fireworks 3 h only the first ten days of August

  Over the first ten days of August fireworks are set off from the bed of the Kiso as the cormorant fishing ends, and around the 10th the big summer-festival display takes place with the floodlit castle behind it. It is free from the riverbank and the bridge, though the view from the ukai boats is better; those places sell out weeks ahead.

• Kiso Riverbank and the Castle Viewpoint 1 h

  The stretch of the Kiso beneath the castle was christened the 'Japanese Rhine' by the geographer Shiga Shigetaka for its rocks and pines. The classic view of the keep above the cliff is taken from the Inuyama bridge or from the Gifu bank, ten minutes from Inuyama-yuen station. There is a level path along the water with benches, and in spring the cherry trees come right down to the bank. The boat descent that ran here until 2013 no longer operates.

• Little World Open-Air Ethnographic Museum 4 h Imai, Inuyama · 20 min

  Thirty-two real houses brought from 23 countries — a Bavarian farmhouse, a Balinese dwelling, nomad tents, a Peruvian stone house — spread along a circuit several kilometres long, plus a pavilion holding some 6,000 objects. You can eat and dress in clothing from each country. Admission 2,200 yen (1,100 for children, 500 from age three), base hours 10:00-16:00 with a fair amount of seasonal variation, and a 20-minute bus from the east exit of Inuyama station.

• Miso Dengaku Grilled over Charcoal 1 h

  The house dish of the castle town: skewers of tofu, konnyaku, aubergine and fish coated in Aichi red miso and grilled over coals in a sunken hearth, served with tea-steeped rice. You eat it in the tea houses along Honmachi street, with set meals around 1,500-2,000 yen. It is lunchtime food, since nearly all of them close by mid-afternoon.

• Sanko Inari Shrine 0.5 h

  The fox shrine halfway up the slope to the castle, with its tunnel of red torii and a pool where you wash coins in a bamboo basket so your money multiplies. Its trademark is the hundreds of pink heart-shaped votive plaques hung in rows, which have made it the most photographed corner of Inuyama. Free and open at any hour; it adjoins Haritsuna Shrine, the one behind the April festival.

• Steam Locomotive and Kyoto Tram at Meiji Mura 1 h Meiji Mura, Inuyama · 20 min

  A late-19th-century steam locomotive with wooden carriages and an electric tram from Kyoto, the first tram to run in Japan, both operating inside the museum with staff in period uniform. They cost extra and cash only: 700 yen for the steam train, 500 for the tram, 500 for the village bus, or a 1,000-yen day pass covering train and tram. Besides being what children like most, they save you a good part of the kilometre on foot.

• Honen Festival at Ogata Shrine 3 h Gakuden, Inuyama · 20 min only the Sunday before 15 March

  Ogata Shrine, in the south of the municipality, holds the female counterpart to the well-known phallic festival at Tagata: a fertility procession with a portable shrine representing the female sex, music, a great deal of sake and hundreds of thousands of visitors. It falls on the Sunday before 15 March, when the shrine's plum garden is in bloom. Take the Meitetsu Komaki Line from Inuyama to Gakuden station and walk from there.

• Japan Monkey Park 4 h

  An amusement park from 1960 where almost nothing has changed: a ferris wheel, a small roller coaster, a children's train and a summer pool, with a provincial-fairground air that is part of the charm. Admission 1,300 yen on weekdays and 1,500 at weekends (900-1,000 for children), or a day pass with all the rides for 3,900-4,000. Ten minutes by bus or twenty-five on foot from the station; it opens fewer days in winter, so check the calendar.

• Koyuzuru Sake and Lorelei Beer 1.5 h

  Koyuzuru, Inuyama's sake brewery, has also been making Lorelei beer to a German recipe since 1998, and runs a twenty-seat place ten minutes' walk from the station, 11:00-16:00 and closed Thursdays, where you can try both. Several shops on Honmachi street pour flights of three small sake tastings for a few hundred yen. Brewery visits must be arranged by phone and are not always running.

• Momotaro Shrine 1 h

  On the far bank of the Kiso, a shrine to the Peach Boy of the folk tale, filled with painted concrete statues from the 1950s: the dog, the monkey, the pheasant and a set of ogres whose expressions land somewhere between threatening and comic. Pure kitsch, thoroughly Japanese, and children love it. The grounds are free and the small folk-tale museum costs a couple of hundred yen extra; reachable by bus or by walking across the bridge from Inuyama-yuen.

• Showa Yokocho Retro Alley 1 h

  A covered courtyard halfway along Honmachi street with seventeen stalls imitating a 1960s shopping arcade: takoyaki, croquettes, local beer, tea, old-fashioned sweets and a self-service shooting gallery with candy for prizes. Upstairs there is archery for 600 yen (400 for children). It is the natural mid-morning stop, and with children it works better than any museum.

• The Floodlit Castle from the Bridge 0.5 h

  After dark the keep is floodlit, and from the Inuyama bridge over the Kiso you see the whole of it silhouetted on the cliff with its reflection in the water — the same image people go looking for from the ukai boats in summer. It is free and ten minutes on foot from Inuyama-yuen station. Worth knowing that the castle town has already closed by then: dinner means one of the few izakaya near the station, or your own lodging.

• Walking the Castle Town in Kimono 3 h

  Half a dozen shops on Honmachi street rent kimono and yukata with dressing and hair styling for around 3,000-5,000 yen a day, and it is what many Japanese visitors from Nagoya do at weekends. In cherry blossom season, book the day before. Mind the castle climb: in zori and kimono the wooden stairs inside the keep are very awkward.

What only happens on specific dates

• Honen Festival at Ogata Shrine the Sunday before 15 March
• Inuyama Festival the first Saturday and Sunday of April
• Night Cormorant Fishing on the Kiso River 1 Jun - 15 Oct
• Daytime Cormorant Fishing 1 Jun - 15 Oct
• Japanese Rhine Fireworks the first ten days of August

Ready-made routes through Inuyama

Chains well with

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