Matsumoto is Far More Than a Black Castle
Polka-dot gardens, an Alpine valley, frog-lined streets — snowmelt running through everything

Japan has twelve original castle keeps still standing; five of those are designated National Treasures. Matsumoto is among them — and unusually, it has never been destroyed by fire, earthquake, or war. The keep's six storeys of black-lacquered wood and white plaster have stood since the Sengoku period, and the interior shows it: steep wooden stairs you grip with both hands, narrow gun-loops still faintly stained with old powder smoke, and a final observation floor where the Northern Alps fill three sides of every window. Outside, the moat holds swans and koi carp. The reflection of the black tower in still water on an early morning, with a faint mist, is one of those images that turns up in guidebooks because it genuinely looks like that.

The reason to see Kusama's work here rather than in Tokyo or New York is context. The museum sits in the city where she grew up, and the permanent collection tells the story of how a girl from a Matsumoto seed-merchant family started drawing dots as a child and eventually put them on everything from pumpkins to infinity rooms. The outdoor garden — oversized yellow dot pumpkins, orange polka-dot pillars, red polka-dot benches — can be admired from outside the fence without buying a ticket. Inside, the permanent Kusama galleries are supplemented by rotating exhibitions from other Shinano-born artists. The museum is 20 minutes on foot from the castle and makes a natural afternoon second stop.

Nawate runs parallel to the Metoba River between the station and the castle — about 150 metres of pedestrian lane lined with roughly 50 low-rise stalls and shops. The frog is the symbol of the street because the Metoba used to be full of them, and the locals decided to keep that association: frogs peer out from shop signs, sit on windowsills, and crouch on stone pedestals at regular intervals along the pavement. The merchandise is the kind that locals still buy rather than just visiting tourists: handmade wooden toys, traditional rice crackers, Nagano apple-based sweets, and freshly grilled taiyaki fish-shaped cakes. A bowl of handmade soba or udon costs under ¥1,000 at any of several small restaurants along the lane.

Cross the bridge from Nawate Street and the mood shifts. Nakamachi was the commercial centre of Edo-period Matsumoto, and the old storehouses — called Kura — were built with thick plaster walls and heavy wooden shutters to protect goods from fire. Today those same walls house gallery spaces for local craft, lacquerware shops selling Matsumoto temari (hand-wound silk-thread balls), quiet independent cafes with wooden interiors, and a handful of small museums. Where Nawate is lively and slightly carnival-ish, Nakamachi is slower and more considered — the kind of street where you notice details because the architecture asks you to look.

The carpenter Rihei Tatebe had never seen Western architecture in person when he designed this building in 1876. He worked from drawings and second-hand descriptions — and the result is entirely its own thing. The front facade carries Romanesque round windows, an octagonal tower, carved plaster angels with trumpets, and around the eaves, Japanese dragons. The building served as an elementary school for 90 years, until 1963. Stepping inside feels like looking at a moment when Japan was deciding what kind of country it wanted to become — rapidly absorbing a foreign visual language without quite completing the translation. The UNESCO designation in 2023 recognised that uniqueness. It is a 10-minute walk from the castle and pairs naturally with a visit.

Kamikochi sits at 1,500 metres inside Chubu Sangaku National Park and receives no private vehicles — the only way in is by reserved bus from Shin-Shimashima Station. The Azusa River runs glacier-turquoise through a wide flat valley floor flanked by peaks reaching 3,000 metres. The standard walk from Taisho Pond to Kappa Bridge and on to Myojin Pond covers roughly six kilometres across mostly flat terrain; it requires no hiking experience and gives you the full scale of the place. Taisho Pond, formed by a 1915 volcanic eruption, holds the drowned trunks of trees still standing — the reflection at dawn is extraordinary. Kappa Bridge is the most photographed spot, directly framing the Hotaka massif. The valley opens in mid-April with snowfields visible on the flanks above, and closes on 15 November each year.

Most people have no particular expectation when they decide to visit a wasabi farm. What they find at Daio — dense green paddies stretching along the Azusa River, wooden waterwheels turning in crystal-clear current straight off the Northern Alps, and the mountain wall rising behind — is not what they expected. The waterwheels in particular: they appear in Akira Kurosawa's 1990 anthology film "Yume" (Dreams) and have the quality of something that existed before photography. Entry is free. The farm shop sells wasabi in every conceivable form: soft-serve ice cream (sweet heat at ¥350), croquettes, sauces, chocolate, and wasabi shampoo if you want a souvenir. A grating demonstration where you use a traditional sharkskin grater on a fresh wasabi root costs about ¥500.

Asama Onsen sits on the lower slopes of the mountains immediately east of Matsumoto and has been in use for roughly 1,300 years. Edo-period records show that feudal lords and samurai came here to recover after campaigns. The water is alkaline and colourless, warmer than it looks, and has none of the sulphur smell common to more volcanic springs. The neighbourhood still functions as an active onsen district rather than a tourist showcase — there are local teenagers soaking after school in the public bathhouses, elderly residents doing their Thursday evening routine, and a few good traditional inns (ryokan) where you can stay overnight. Coming here after a full day walking the castle, the museum and the streets makes the end of the day feel earned.

If you are in Matsumoto between December and February, come back to the castle after dark. The annual projection mapping show (2025–2026 runs December through mid-February) throws patterns of gold and Japanese floral motifs onto the black surface of the keep — and that surface then doubles itself in the moat, so the image you see is part castle, part reflection. There is no admission charge and no booking required; you simply walk into the castle park after 18:00. Even outside the projection-mapping season, the keep is lit all year round: the black tower against a dark-blue winter sky, with the moat reflecting it, is worth the walk back from wherever you are eating dinner.