Nijō Castle

Nijo-jo Castle is the Kyoto seat of the Tokugawa shoguns, completed in 1603 on the orders of Tokugawa Ieyasu in the year he was appointed Shogun, and it bracketed the whole of the regime it was built for. Ieyasu came here to announce his appointment to the assembled feudal lords, and in 1867 the fifteenth shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, summoned the senior vassals of forty domains resident in Kyoto to the Ohiroma of the Ninomaru-goten Palace and told them that political control was going back to the Emperor. Wheelchair routes, ramps, accessible toilets and loan wheelchairs serve grounds and much of Ninomaru Palace, but gravel, thresholds and some gardens remain difficult. Castle grounds open 08:45-17:00, last admission 16:00; Ninomaru Palace opens 08:45-16:10. Closed 29-31 December, with additional Ninomaru Palace closure days. Adult castle-and-Ninomaru Palace admission is JPY 1,300; grounds-only adult admission is JPY 800. Nijojo-mae station on the Tozai subway line is directly beside the east gate; Kyoto City Bus stop Nijojo-mae serves the same entrance.

The Ninomaru-goten Palace is the reason most people come. Six buildings connected in a diagonal line, it is the only surviving fortified palace complex of its kind and the textbook example of shoin-zukuri architecture. Nijojo-mae station on the Tozai subway line is directly beside the east gate; Kyoto City Bus stop Nijojo-mae serves the same entrance.

The castle publishes three model routes and calls the two-hour one recommended. The one-hour route, for the time-pressed, takes in the Higashi Ote-mon Gate, the Bansho, the Tonan corner turret, the Kara-mon Gate, the Ninomaru-goten Palace and its garden, the Seiryu-en Garden and the Painting Gallery. The two-hour route adds the Honmaru-goten Palace and garden, the base of the keep tower and the Waraku-an tea house. The two-and-a-half-hour route, for the enthusiast, adds the Minami-mon Gate and, on the southern loop, the plum grove and the cherry grove.

Castle grounds open 08:45-17:00, last admission 16:00; Ninomaru Palace opens 08:45-16:10. Closed 29-31 December, with additional Ninomaru Palace closure days. Nijojo-mae station on the Tozai subway line is directly beside the east gate; Kyoto City Bus stop Nijojo-mae serves the same entrance. Wheelchair routes, ramps, accessible toilets and loan wheelchairs serve grounds and much of Ninomaru Palace, but gravel, thresholds and some gardens remain difficult.

Adult castle-and-Ninomaru Palace admission is JPY 1,300; grounds-only adult admission is JPY 800. Castle grounds open 08:45-17:00, last admission 16:00; Ninomaru Palace opens 08:45-16:10. Closed 29-31 December, with additional Ninomaru Palace closure days. Wheelchair routes, ramps, accessible toilets and loan wheelchairs serve grounds and much of Ninomaru Palace, but gravel, thresholds and some gardens remain difficult.

Nijojo-mae station on the Tozai subway line is directly beside the east gate; Kyoto City Bus stop Nijojo-mae serves the same entrance. Wheelchair routes, ramps, accessible toilets and loan wheelchairs serve grounds and much of Ninomaru Palace, but gravel, thresholds and some gardens remain difficult.

Wheelchair routes, ramps, accessible toilets and loan wheelchairs serve grounds and much of Ninomaru Palace, but gravel, thresholds and some gardens remain difficult. Historic surfaces, crowds and security remain relevant. Castle grounds open 08:45-17:00, last admission 16:00; Ninomaru Palace opens 08:45-16:10. Closed 29-31 December, with additional Ninomaru Palace closure days.

The rule is simple and strict: cameras work outdoors and stop at the palace thresholds. Photography and video are permitted anywhere on the outdoor viewing route as long as they do not obstruct other visitors, and they are prohibited outright inside the Ninomaru-goten Palace and the Honmaru-goten Palace, both because the corridors are too narrow for people to stop in and because of the paintings. So the tiger rooms, the Ohiroma and the Otsune-goten exist only in memory and in the guidebook. The Painting Gallery is the exception that recovers some of that. Adult castle-and-Ninomaru Palace admission is JPY 1,300; grounds-only adult admission is JPY 800.