Nijo Castle was built in the early 1600s during Japan's feudal period. If you want more history, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nijo_Castle but I'll quote one short section:
One of the most striking features of Nijō Castle are the "nightingale floors" in the corridors. To protect the occupants from sneak attacks and assassins, the builders constructed the floors of the corridors in such a way as to squeak like birds when anyone walks on them.After walking through that section and listening to the interesting sounds of the "security system floor", my brother commented that it was amazing workmanship that 400 years later the intricately constructed floor was still functioning exactly as it was designed to.
Surrounding the castle, there is a series of gardens and pathways. Walking around on the grounds and seeing the gardens with the castle in the background was as beautiful as touring the building itself.
Later, we went to Kiyomizu Temple. Unfortunately,
we got there just about 15 minutes before the grounds closed, but we saw as much as we could in the short time we had, and then continued looking around from outside the area that had been roped off. We could still see quite a bit of the temple complex from there, and I continued to take pictures.All of the pictures I'm including in this post were stitched together from multiple photos, which is why they have a long, panorama perspective.
