Cost: 500 yen for adults, free for junior high children or younger, with discounts for groups of 30 or 100
Good for: Groups, people interested in history, people that like art
Nagoya castle, despite its age, is not considered by many people I talk to as being a worthwhile place to go to because it has been renovated and changed. However, after having gone there, I believe it's still a great place. The major difference between Nagoya castle and other castles is it doesn't have the same feeling of age. This is contrasted with slightly more comfort, and the castle itself is reminiscent of a museum. When walking around the grounds, there's not many hints of the modernization that has happened elsewhere, and the greenery is beautiful.
Upon entering the castle walls, there's a separate area (the guest house) that has the rooms used in the past, and their decorated sliding doors, on display. With the very subtle lighting changes between rooms, each illustration is stunning. The colors in all of them are very vibrant. Animals were depicted in almost all of the pieces, but my favorite was of a tree. The lighting gave it an especially pretty glow that made it pop more then the others. The best aspect of it had to be the feeling that I was seeing the sun climb over the clouds thanks to the great positioning for the shaded and lighter areas.
The guest house is small, so going through it shouldn't take more than five to ten minutes for most people. After the gardens and the house, there's the castle itself. Nagoya Castle had six accessible floors when I went there, and each floor had something interesting on display. Displays ranged from old suits of armor and weapons to architectural models and works of art. I'm a big fan of old weaponry in part because of sense of permanency to them and in part because the way that the Japanese treated weapon creation as an art form led to many beautiful swords and spears. In addition to the works of art, a fair amount of actual history is explained in both English and Japanese.
