Pictures of Hikone, Japan

Hikone Castle: One of the several walls you have to pass through to get to the castle proper. The castle grounds are essentially a small mountain (or a big hill, whatever) with several paths that kind of wind around and up until they reach the main castle courtyard.

Hikone Castle: This is the bridge leading into the castle grounds. It's obviously very old (no idea exactly how old), and when I looked at parts of it closely, it didn't seem that any of it had been restored any time soon, which leads me to believe it's all original. The metal caps could be copper, but at the time, I thought for some reason they were bronze.

Hikone Castle: Well, there it is. There was a sign around it somewhere that explained how the foundation was constructed by some unique field stone stacking technique which was supposed to be incredibly stable despite looking the opposite. I guess if it's lasted over 300 years, it can't be too shabby.

View of Hikone from the Castle.

View of Lake Biwa near Hikone.