Kanazawa

I’m finding if I don’t write something quickly after being in an area/town/city, I forget the details of our experience. While we are purposely slow travelers, we are moving from place to place more frequently since leaving Tokyo.

A quick note regarding the photos I’m including here and in most of the other posts for this trip. There are so many wonderful things to see here and they have been photographed millions of times. My goal is to capture the experience we’re having and not necessarily every landmark. That means sometimes capturing crowds, people enjoying the spaces, and people taking pictures of each other.

One of the reasons we planned a visit to KANAZAWA was to attend a craft fair, which we failed to attend because we found lots of other things to do. People go to Kanazawa to see the castle, gardens, and temple district, which we spent our time doing. While it rained much of the time, it did not stop us or anyone else from doing anything. The Japanese are well prepared for rain with umbrellas available everywhere, umbrella storage, umbrella lockers, and umbrella covers.

Kanazawa was more touristy than we had experienced yet, but still enjoyable, particularly if you get up at 6:00 in the morning and walk in the rain.

Kanazawa Castle and its grounds are pretty large with massive walls and moats. All really well cared for and restored. We’ve been very impressed with how much respect and care is given to maintaining history and infrastructure across the country.

The recent earthquake in 2024 damaged some of the castle walls, which are being restored using the original stones. You’ll see some photos of the stones laid out and organized to be put back up. All while maintaining the original masonry.

Oyama Shrine is close to the castle and Kenrokuen Garden, as well as just a short walk from our hotel, which made it easy to visit really early in the morning. We first went on a rainy afternoon, and then I returned early in the morning to experience it with less people. The garden is considered to be one of three great gardens in Japan.

Kanazawa is sometimes described as a smaller Kyoto with its gardens, plenty of shrines and temples, and areas of historic homes. It also has museums, shops, great restaurants, and nice residential areas.

As usual we found ourselves discovering the unexpected and ended up at a once-a-year sake-tasting festival. The festival theme this year was “Supporting the Recovery of Sake Breweries” that were damaged in the Noto Peninsula earthquake that occurred on New Year’s Day of 2024. The event was a nice way to get to experience local culture. The rain did not stop it from being a very popular event. With tickets in hand, we explored a number (I forget how many!) sakes from around Japan. Like wine or beer, there are a lot of small brewers producing very different types and tastes.