Located in the prefecture of Nagano, Matsumoto is only 2hours and a half by train from Tokyo. This is the first castle we visited.
Its construction began in 1504 and the major part of the castle was completed around 1594. Only the Moon chamber is after the castle. This last room was built in 1633. The entire castle is based on a stone base, this base is on stilts, 16 enormous trunks are hidden in the base. The castle consists mainly of two buildings, built between 1593 and 1594. There is one with 3 floors and one of 5. The main tower is classified National Treasure . This castle is one of the only castles to have never been rebuilt. The original building is one that is visited today. This castle and the one in Okayama are called Crow Castle 烏 城 (Karasu-jō) because the castle exterior color is black.
Admission is 610 yen per person but we were very lucky. We did not pay anything to visit the castle. In fact, we were queuing to buy our tickets when two old Japanese women who came out from the castle, gave free tickets to people queuing. We were a little skeptical but hazardly, we tried the shot and took 2. We said that if it doesn't work, we just have to go back in the queue and pay our admission fee. Just before the main entrance of the tallest keep, I scanned front and behind me to see if people had the same type of ticket as mine. The truth is that we still fear that these free tickets cause us trouble. But fortunately, controllers didn't buffer nor tear the ticket. So the ticket can be reused many times. Ta Da!!!! :)
From the top of the tower, there is a magnificent view of the city and the promenade with the moat around the castle. The stairs are horrible to go up and down especially. The steps are very small but very high. And the worst is that the ceilings are quite low. The last stairs to the top floor is a nightmare. There is only one staircase to the ascent and descent and in the half of the staircase, passage is very narrow and very low. It's almost the obstacle course but worth a look.