Nijo Castle

After the Kiyomizu-Dera Temple, Setsuko-san took us to Nijo Castle.  Photography wasn't allowed inside in the palace, but the grounds were still amazing!  The castle was originally built in 1603 as the official Kyoto residence of the first Shogun, Ieyasu.  (can you tell that I finally unpacked my brochures?!)  I'll be updating with real info on the previous temple soon :)  In 1867 the castle was the property of the Imperial Family (Nijo Detached Palace), but in 1939 the castle was donated to the city of Kyoto and they then renamed it Nijo Castle.

This is the main gate:

This is the Kara-mon gate that leads to the Ninomaru Palace (no pictures of the inside):

Ninomaru Palace (considered a National Treasure), the entire floor area of the palace totals 3,300 square feet.  It has 33 rooms and over 800 tatami mats!  The coolest feature of this palace (in my opinion) is the unique floors.  They are called Uguisu-Bari (Nightingale floors).  When you walk on the floor boards in the corridor it squeaks like a Nightingale!  If you stopped during the tour, it sounded like a flock of birds flying by.  There is a space between the floor board and the base board and a clamp squeaks when someone places weight on top.  It was to keep spies out of the palace and to make sure no one snuck in during important meetings.  The paintings on the walls were so beautiful.  They were restoring portions of the artwork, but in other areas you could see that it was still the original paintings.

The gardens outside the main palace were stunning!

At one time there was a five story castle tower with these bells inside.  It was struck by lightning  and burned down in 1750:

Here is the spot where the five story tower was:

This is the outside of the Honmaru Palace (Inner Palace).  It will be opened up to the public at the end of September so we didn't get to go in:

There was an outer moat that surrounded ALL of the grounds as well as an inner moat that protected the inner palace:

Up next?  The Golden Pavilion!