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 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.