Odawara Castle

Odawara was the base of the Later Hojo, who held much of eastern Japan through the sixteenth century, and the castle was among the strongest in the country - not for its keep but for the sokogamae, an earthwork and moat line of about nine kilometres that enclosed the entire town, one of the earliest examples of that approach in Japan. Sections of the bank survive in the streets around the modern park and are marked. The castle was dismantled in the Meiji period; the present keep is a 1960 reinforced concrete reconstruction, rebuilt to the eighteenth-century plans, with a museum inside and a view from the top over the town to Sagami Bay. The Tokaido road passed here, and the castle's function was to control that route into the Kanto plain. Cherry trees fill the grounds in April.

What you actually see

• The sokogamae - traces of a nine-kilometre earthwork that once enclosed the whole town.
• A 1960 keep - reconstructed to eighteenth-century plans, housing a museum.
• The Tokaido position - a castle sited to control the road into the Kanto plain.
• Cherry in the grounds - the park filling with blossom in April.

When to go

April for cherry. Two hours. It is an easy stop on the Tokaido shinkansen line.

Honest expectations

The keep is concrete with a modern interior and lift. The great earthwork survives only in fragments among houses. It is a park with a castle rather than a preserved fortress. Blossom season is crowded.

Nearby

Hakone is west up the valley; Kamakura is north-east along the coast.