Enjoy the moon from Tatami National treasure Matsumoto Castle and the Moon Tower
Matsumoto Castle is in Matsumoto, Nagano. Its central keep is said to be the oldest remaining castle keep in Japan and is selected as national treasure.
Its characteristic is that there are 3 towers
“for war”
and 2 towers
“for peace”
connected.
This is unique to Matsumoto Castle and there is
“the Moon Tower”
among them.
Inside the Moon Tower was used to be Tatami flooring. Moon Tower and Tatsumi-Tsuke Tower was built in Edo era as accommodation for the 3rd Shogun Iemitsu Tokugawa while he visits
“Zenkoji”
the famous temple in Nagano.
Though it’s no longer Tatami floored, it’s open atmosphere shows that it was built in peaceful era.
It is said that they took off thin board called Mairado and enjoyed the Moon coming up from the East from Tatami.
The custom of enjoying the Moon still remains today and there are a lot of people enjoying night time.
We can feel the romance when we think that those people of old times were enjoying the Moon in the same way as we do.
