This tour is one night, two days tour in Kanazawa that include various tour spots such as Kenrokuen-garden, Kanazawa castle, Samurai residence, Higashi Chaya district and Ohmimachi market. You can have an impressive experience by watching the remains of castle town established by a local feudal load ;Toshiie Maeda. Kanazawa is called “Little Kyoto” as a town having traditional beauty like Kyoto.
At your hotel in Tokyo
In Kanazawa city, you can find the remains of castle town established by a local feudal load of Samurai worriers, Toshiie Maeda who did enormous role during Azuchi-Momoyama period (1573~1600). Maeda family of feudal load had kept the load of Kanazawa castle as number one crop yield of 1 million among the loads in Japan as the servants to Tokugawa Shogunate. The ancient atmosphere of current Kanagawa city such as Nagamachi Samurai residence, Higashi chaya, Kenrokuen garden, Kanazawa castle and so-on come from the heritage of Maeda family. Kanazawa is called “Little Kyoto” and promoting it as a town having traditional beauty like Kyoto.
This garden is one of the most famous landscape garden in Japan. There are three artificial hills , two beautiful ponds and bipedal stone lantern which is a symbol of the garden that stands with one foot in the water and the other on an islet.
Nationally- Designated Historical Site Kanazawa castle is located at the edge of a hilly area, between two rivers that run through the city. Its total area is approximately 30 herctares and the central enclosure has an elevation of 60 meters, around 30 meter above the castle town. In 1583, Maeda Toshiie became the load of Kanazawa castle, after which it became home to the Maeda clan which would rule over Kaga domain, a large region covering most of modern day Ishikawa and Toyama prefectures through the Edo period. In 1759, most of the castle’s building were lost in the largest fire the castle town had ever seen, but Ishikawa main gate and Sanjikken Nagaya storehouse were both reconstructed and have been preserved since Edo area.
Kanazawa castle with its well preserved and accurately re-created grounds , and its stone wall built with advanced stone working techniques is an excellent example of modern Japanese castles.
This shrine deify Toshiie Maeda who was a local feudal load of Samurai worriers and did enormous role as one of the top feudal loads during Azuchi-Momoyama period (1573~1600). There are three types of building method as Japanese, Chinese and Western.
This temple was the place where worshipers pray for favors. Kaga Domain just in case built this building as a fortress to protect an attacking from Tokugawa Shogun. Therefore, this building has various mechanism to mislead the enemies to intrude such as a loophole to Kanazawa castle, a pitfall of offertory box, hidden stair under a floor board, hidden window behind a hanging scroll and so-on. The ceiling is set a lower height to prevent swords and spears can not be used. These trick existence in this building is the reason why this temple is called “Ninjya house”. The building seem to be two stories, however there are seven layers and the total room numbers as 23 and stair numbers as 29. The sightseeing inside this building need to be reserved as 30 minutes time and no English explanation by staff available, only Japanese.
This area is located in Nagamachi district where there are many houses with earthen walls that belonged to Feudal load and still retain an atmosphere of feudal times.
- Mud walls / stone around the Samurai houses: The thick walls are made of mud mixed with gravel and then hardened. The lower part of the mud walls are made by piling up round, half -ground (cracked) riverbed stones. The mud walls are covered with a singled-roof in order to protect the wall’s surface from rain.
There are lots of souvenir stores and restaurants where you can taste Kanazawa local consumed gourmet in this district.
Machiya in Kanazawa:
Machiya is the urban housing where merchants and craftsmen had lived during Edo ara. Those buidings used to be built on the residence of town people inside castle town and port town.
The characteristic of the buildings are as follows.
• The buildings are built directly in front of the road.
• Each family’s house contact each other with frontage fully spread and stand side by side.
• This is not a terraced house but independent house with pillars and walls not be shared each other.
This market was opened by Oumi merchant who had lived near Kyoto and moved to this district.
Various shops who sells fresh fishes, fruit & vegetable, dry matter, miscellaneous goods and so-on are lined in this market.
To return to Tokyo by Shinkansen
At your hotel in Tokyo
Guide fee (19.5hours),
Pick-up-fee at your staying hotel in Tokyo,
Transportation fee during this tour for you and a guide in case you move from hotel in Tokyo: yen28800 with both way by Shinkansen between Tokyo and Kanazawa per person,
Lunch fee,
Entrance fee for you: Kenrokuen garden: JPY320/ adult, Higashi Chaya district : JPY500 / adult,
Myoryuji temple, JPY1200/adult, Samurai residence Nomura house: JPY550/adult,
Accomodation fee (one night) for you,
Accomodation fee (one night) for a guide: JPY6000,
I am now focusing tour guide area for East Japan area such as Tokyo, Yokohama, Hakone, Kamakura, Mt.Fuji, Nikko, Gunma, Saitama and Kanazawa.
However, I can support you for one day trip of Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Nara and Himeji from Tokyo.
1) For fairly long walking of sight-seeing, please put on the shoes to walk with ease.
2) Please prepare the cash to spend any bus riding, lunch and souvenir.
3) I prepared the blog of Kanazawa which shows various tour spots with detail photos and detail explanation each shown as below.
Blog title of Kanazawa: Kanazawa Tour Spots with Nostalgic Atmosphere of Ancient Edo era,
Kashima San is a very friendly and knowledgeable guide. He provided us with all the details of our tour down to the minute and was prompt at replying to my inquiries. We took the bullet train to Kyoto on a beautiful sunny day and saw all the temples and shrines while Kashima San gave us historical facts about what we were looking at. He's a wonderful guide and I would definitely book with him again. 次回まで鹿島さん、さようなら
Lydia san, thank you very much for your upmost review for me. We visited Kyoto by one day tour from Tokyo with exploring Kyoto Arashiyam area as Tenryuji temple & Bamboo forest and also visited Golden pavilion & Ryoanji temple/Rock garden. I am very much pleased that you could enjoy the Kyoto tour and also the scenery on the Shinkansen we took. I am impressed that your family were very much interested in Japanese culture, building of each area and Japanese life style. Thanks to your strong curiosity for Japan, we could exchange various information and funny conversation. I hope that you visit Japan again with your family in near future so that I can introduce other nice tour spots in Japan for you. Thanks, Kashima
Kashima expertly guided my son and I with a day tour of Hakone. All the logistics for the day were smooth and exactly as promised, and Kashima matched his pace to ours. He was very attentive to detail, and spent a lot of effort to explain the history and geology of Hakone in a very useful and interesting way. Hakone itself was beautiful, and I especially enjoyed visiting the checkpoint on the former Tokkaido Road and the replica waystation there. Kashima took care to optimize our time with him, and returned us exactly where we needed to be to continue our onward trip. Excellent day in Hakone with Kashima, and I would recommend!
Keith san, thank you very much for your upmost review for me. I am very much pleased that you and your son could very much enjoyed this tour. Hakone is located in a big Caldera and 4 small calderas created inside the big caldera which had been created by repeated eruption from 40k years ago to 3k years ago. Those nature power had created lots of good hot springs and enormous beautiful nature such as Oowakudani valley, Lake-Ashi and small mountain accumulated by lava where Hakone shrine located. As such, Hakone is the nature and historical culture theme park with well prepared original transportation such as Hakone Tozan railway, cable car, Ropeway, Pirate cruising on Lake-Asi and Tozan bus. Thanks to you and your son strong curiosity, we could exchange various information and interesting conversation. I hope that you visit Japan again with your family in near future so that I can introduce other nice tour spots in Japan for you. Thanks, Kashima
Honest and hardworking person despite his age. Strong recommend.
Sanjay san, thank you very much for your upmost review for me. We visited the most advanced and sophisticated town of Shibuya and Ginza. I am pleased that you could enjoy there including lots of various shopping at Ginza area. Also, we could exchange various information and funny conversation. I hope that you visit Japan again with your family in near future so that I can introduce other nice tour spots in Japan for you. Thanks, Kashima
We really enjoyed our tour of Kanazawa with Kashima. He knows the area well and was able to streamline the sights for us. Also, he is has a very pleasant personality and speaks English well. We highly recommend booking a tour with him.
Bruce san, thank you very much for your upmost review for me. I am very much pleased that you could enjoy the Kanazawa tour with me. Kanazawa is said to be little Kyoto by the tour spots of Kanazawa Castle remains, Kenrokuen garden, Samurai residence, traditional shrine, fish market and so-on that are all related to the biggest feudal load as Maeda family during 16th century to 19th century. I think you could relax to see Kanazawa which are not so much jammed compared with Kyoto. We could make funny communication for various interesting topics. Thank you very much for your strong interest for Japanese culture and history. Kashima,