❖ Gather at Aizuwakamatsu Station

❖ Nisshinkan including Kyudo Experience

09:15 - 10:35 (1:20 h)

Nisshinkan was the highest ranked school of the Aizu clan, founded in 1803 to nurture the next generation. Children of the clan entered at the age of 10 to study and to train in the martial arts, disciplining both mind and body. Spread across roughly 8,000 tsubo, the academy held a martial arts hall, an observatory and Suiren Suima Pond, the oldest swimming pool in Japan, and it produced many remarkable figures, the boys of the Byakkotai among them. Today's Nisshinkan is a faithful reconstruction of that original campus, where the grandeur of Edo architecture and the daily rhythm of study come back to life. Here you can try various bushido experiences for yourself, from Kyudo archery and Zen meditation to painting Akabeko, the lucky red cow of Aizu.

❖ Tsurugajo Castle

11:00 - 12:25 (1:25 h)

Tsurugajo Castle is the emblem of Aizu Wakamatsu City in Fukushima Prefecture and, by its official name, Wakamatsu Castle. Raised about 630 years ago, it was returned to its late-Edo appearance in 2011, when the roof of the keep was re-laid in distinctive red tiles. That five-story red-tiled tower is counted among the 100 most beautiful castles in Japan, and within it a museum brings the long history of Aizu vividly to life.

❖ Lunch

12:40 - 13:30 (50 min)

❖ Oyakuen with Matcha Tasting

13:40 - 14:30 (50 min)

Oyakuen began roughly 600 years ago as a villa for the lord of the Aizu Domain. In the mid-17th century the lord began cultivating medicinal herbs within its grounds to shield the people of Aizu from epidemics, and from this came the garden's name, Oyakuen, literally the medicinal garden. The traditional garden has been kept just as it looked long ago, its buildings once a place of rest and entertainment for the lord. Fittingly, Oyakuen still holds structures devoted to the way of tea, and visitors today can pause over a cup of herbal tea here.

❖ Iimoriyama and Sazae Hall

15:10 - 16:30 (1:20 h)

Iimoriyama is a small mountain that looks out over the castle town of Aizu. During the battle, 20 of the young Byakkotai retreated to this hill; from here they saw fire rising in the city and, believing Tsurugajo Castle had fallen, took their own lives on the spot. Only one boy survived. The graves of the nineteen who died here, together with thirty-one comrades who fell elsewhere around the castle, can still be visited on Mount Iimoriyama. Because the stone steps are steep, a moving slope conveyor is available for the climb. Aizu Sazae Hall stands close by, and souvenir shops line the foot of the hill.

Built 225 years ago, in 1796, Aizu Sazae Hall rises 16.5 metres as a hexagonal, three-storied structure, and it remains the only wooden building in the world with a double-helix design. Its formal name is Entsuu Sansodou. There was once a temple called Shosoji in Iimoriyama, and the hall was conceived by its abbot, a priest named Ikudo. In earlier days the unique spiralling slope enshrined the 33 Kannon of the West, so that a single visit was said to equal a pilgrimage to all of them. In 1996 it was designated a National Important Cultural Property, recognised for its singular place in architectural history: a one-way system with separate passages for ascending and descending, allowing many worshippers to pass through safely without ever crossing paths.

❖ Arrive at Aizuwakamatsu Station