Kokura Castle

Hosokawa Tadaoki built the castle in 1602 at the point where the Murasaki river meets the strait, controlling the crossing between Honshu and Kyushu. The keep is worth looking at closely because of one oddity: the top floor is wider than the floor below it with no roof separating them, an overhanging design called nanban-zukuri, southern-barbarian style, which almost no other Japanese castle has.

The original burned in 1837 and the current keep is a 1959 concrete reconstruction. It also added decorative gables the original never had, a liberty that still annoys people who care about such things.

Inside was rebuilt again in 2019 and is now a modern exhibition rather than a dusty display of armour. Much of it deals with Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro, who fought their duel in 1612 on Ganryujima, an island visible from the top floor, and with the Kokura of the Edo period. There is a projection-mapped diorama and a good deal of touch-screen material, most of it with English.

Next door, Kokura Castle Garden reconstructs a feudal lord's residence and garden with a tea house where you can drink matcha looking at the keep. On the other side stands Riverwalk, a shopping mall in loud primary colours, which makes for one of the more jarring architectural juxtapositions in Japan.

Entry is around 350 yen. It is fifteen minutes on foot from Kokura Station, which is a Shinkansen stop, so it is an easy stop between trains. The Tanga market five minutes away is where to eat.