Left Kamikochi at around noon today. According to the map it was a 50km downhill ride all the way to Matsumoto City. I had expected to take around 3 hours to get to Matsumoto, but it was even faster than expected!
Going down Kama Tunnel at around 50km/h was thrilling! The previous day, it took me more than 30 minutes to go up, but the trip down took less than 5 minutes.... After leaving Kama Tunnel, the road to Matsumoto City was a series of another 15 downhill tunnels. Without hairpin curves like in the Norikura Skyline Road, I coasted at around 40km/h for almost an hour before the descent tapered off into a flat road as I entered Matsumoto City.
Road to Matsumoto City
The tunnels cut through quite a few mountains
Reaching Matsumoto City just before 3pm, I checked into Su-e-Hirokan Hotel, which was just next to Matsumoto Castle. Of course, I put down my stuff and immediately went to check out the famous Matsumoto Castle.
Matsumoto Castle is one of the 4 castles designated as National Treasures in Japan. The others are Himeji, Hikone and Inuyama. Matsumoto Castle is also known as Karasu-jo, or Crow Castle because of its black and white theme. The castle building consists of a lower tower and the main tower which is 6 storeys high.
Karasu-jo
Below, you can see a picture of a musa-hashiri. These wide corridors built along the perimeter of each level in the castle were purposely made wider for samurai in full armor to run through. This allowed the warriors to quickly move from point to point in the castle to defend it against external attackers.Musa-hashiri
View of Matsumoto City from the top floor of the main tower in Matsumoto Castle
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