My trips and tips: Gifu Castle...

May 5th, Its the third holiday of the Golden week and we planned to visit the Gifu Castle. We have two options to reach there by train - either we can go to Nagoya and from there catch another train to Gifu or directly from Tajimi station to Gifu. If we opt the first one, we will reach Gifu some 20 minutes earlier than the second. But the fare is 1110 yens in total. The second way will take 72 minutes to reach there while the fare is 820 yens. Considering the cost and the benefit that we can reach there in a single train, we opted the latter. From Tajimi, we started our jouney via Taita line. The train had only two bogies and the passengers are also less in number. That might be the reason why there is not much services through this line while comparing with the others.
Out of the Gifu station as a beautiful park with fountains , flowers and trees surrounding the Golden statue of Nobunaga Oda.

Park outside Gifu station.

Golden Nobunaga Oda Statue.

With the `samurais

From the eki, we caught a bus and reached in front of the Gifu park (`Gifu koen maye`). We walked up to the entrance of the park located at the base of Mount Kinka. At the entrance, there is a statue of Nobunaga Oda riding a horse. Inside the park was so beautiful with trees all around and a pool with colorful fishes swimming around. There was a small bridge across the pool and a beautiful waterfall made at one end of the pool. We wandered around through the park and saw some people dressed like samurais for entertaining the visitors of the park. We took photos with them. At one end of the park, there was a beautiful fountain with a statue at the center.

Small bridge.

Fountain in the park.

After about 25 minutes of walk through the park taking some photos and enjoying the beauty of nature there, we walked up through the trails to reach the three- storied pagoda. The vermillion tiered tower is surrounded by green trees. It is located in the moutainside easy of the Park. The majestic appearance in its red color vividly draws attention from afar.

Three - storied pagoda.

Kinkasan ropeway pass.

Cable car of the Kinkasan Ropeway

As we reached infront of it, we saw that the entrance to the pagoda is closed. We got disappointed as we walked up through the trails for a 10 minutes to reach up there. We walked down to the ropeway base station, Sanroku located inside the park. From there cable car services are offered up to the mountaintop of Kinka here situated the Gifu castle. We bought two round trip tickets from there which costs 1050 yens per person. After waiting for a 10 minute, we entered the cable car. This is my first ropeway ride and am a bit scared while the car moved up. The site as so nice as we could see the thick tree tops and the red pagoda along with the Gifu city while moving up.

Pagoda view from inside the cable car

But the ride was too short and e reached the summit Sanch station in 3 minutes. We have to walk along a paved path to reach the Gifu castle. After passing the first gate - Tenka Daiichi-no-mon gate, started the steps up to the castle tower.

Tomb on the way to castle

A structure on the side of the pavement.

After walking some more distance we saw another gate - the Ninomaru gate. Then we reached a place from where we get a very nice view of the castle.

Castle tower as viewed from at a place along the pavement.

After a 40 minutes walk from the station we reached the castle entrance. We both got a little tired as we reached the top.　We spent a 10 minutes over the rocks in ront of the castle. After that took the entry pass for the castle orth 200 yens per person and walked in.

Gifu castle entrance ticket

There are four floors for the castle of with an observation deck at the top. The first floor exhibited weapons like bows and arrows, muskets, swords, spears, rifles etc.

Swords.

Spears.

Swords.

Bows and arrows.

The second floor of the castle has paintings of the people occupied in that palace including Nobudaga and his wife..

Nohime - Nobunaga`s wife

Oda Nobunaga

Oda Nobunaga.

Saito Yoshitatsu

Saito Dosan

The third floor - Nobunaga room exhibits the statues, armor suits, helmets, telescopes, lenses, maps etc. of Nobunaga`s period(Edo period) .

Oda Nobunaga`s statue.

Eyeglasses.

Armor suits and helmets.

At last we reached the forth floor, the observation deck which provides a grant panoramic view of Giu city including the Nagaragawa(`gawa` means river). There are telescopes arranged at the four corners or enjoying the view hich e can use by paying a 100 yen.

A view of Nagara river from the observation deck.

Some photos taken from the observation deck of Gifu castle.

After spending 20 minutes there, we walked down the stairs and reached the round floor. There we found a rest corner for the visitors here e sat for a 15 minutes. The television there displayed the Nagaragawa festival which is a fishing festival held in the Nagara river.

While walking down to the ropeway station, we entered the Gifu castle museum which displays armors, robes etc of Edo period. On the way down, there was a well named Honmaru well (The well of Gifu castle) which was used for military purposes.

Honmaru river.

Near to the ropeway station, there is a squirrel village here they keeps various varieties of squirrels. Visitors are allowed to feed them too. We get inside after taking an entry pass worth 200￥. They gave a glouse to wear and some powder was placed on our covered hands so that the squirrel will come to us. Once the grain flour is over, they went away fast. I love squirrels, but the squirrel village disappointed me. There are some rabbits also inside the village.