❖ Meet at Aizu-Wakamatsu Station

09:30

Your guide meets you at Aizu-Wakamatsu Station, the gateway to the Aizu region, where the day on foot begins.

❖ Tsutsumi Factory: Paper Knife Making

10:00 - 11:00 (1:00 h)

Sword smithing was practised in Aizu for 250 years, from 1627 until the Sword Abolishment Edict of 1876. When swords were banned, the smiths turned their forges to cutlery, producing many knives even as their own numbers dwindled. Those who remained refused to compromise, and today they have carried the old skills nationwide through hoe making. Here a former Aizu blacksmith shows you how a hoe is made, and you forge iron yourself to shape a paper knife.

❖ Lunch

11:30 - 12:45 (1:15 h)

A break for lunch in the heart of the old castle town.

❖ Amidaji Temple

12:50 - 13:20 (30 min)

A short visit to Amidaji Temple along the walking route.

❖ Walking the Town: Traditional Craft Stores

13:20 - 14:20 (1:00 h)

From here the route threads through Aizu's traditional craft shops, with stops at two or three of the following: the Hoshi Ban Picture Candle Shop, Nuriichi lacquerware, Yamada Cotton Weavers and Taketo.

Hoshi Ban Picture Candle Shop

At Hoshi Ban you meet a candle tradition that flourished under Gamo Ujisato; it was said that 'the lights of Edo come from Aizu', for Aizu's lacquer wax, pressed from the fruit of the lacquer tree, supplied two thirds of the Japanese candles burned in Edo, which made them a prized local product. Today the wax is drawn from the fruit of the hazel tree.

These Aizu Picture Candles are painted with glossy chrysanthemums, peonies, camellias and plums, decoration long favoured in samurai households and temples. When one is lit, the painted flowers vanish like a phantom as the candle burns, a transience that has made them loved as keepsakes and room decorations, so beautiful it can feel a waste to use them.

Aizu Lacquerware

Aizu lacquerware traces its origins back about 420 years to the lord Gamo Ujisato, who brought woodworkers and lacquerers from Omi Province (today's Shiga Prefecture). The craft took hold because the surrounding mountains grow lacquer-yielding trees in a humid climate, and despite the darkness of old Aizu winters it developed with elegance and vivid colours, its Aizu-e style patterned with pine, bamboo, plum blossom and the devil's arrow, sold here as accessories, soup bowls, wine cups and stacked boxes.

Yamada Cotton Weavers

Aizu cotton has been woven since the first half of the Edo period, worn even as everyday clothing by the boys of the Byakkotai and by the young Hideyo Noguchi, and it still goes into shirts, dresses, interior pieces and patchwork. At Yamada the antique looms remain in daily use, and you can watch the cloth being made before you shop.

Taketo

The Taketo Tea House opened on 24 May 2020 inside an old merchant house that is among the oldest commercial premises in Aizu Wakamatsu, trading bamboo crafts, sundries and Aizu Karato kites since its founding in 1624. The Karato kite, with its distinctive long protruding tongue, is said to have come from the continent 400 years ago, and these traditions have been kept since the Edo period on Ichinomachi Street, reputed to be the busiest street in Aizu.

❖ Tsurugajo Castle

14:20 - 15:20 (1:00 h)

Tsurugajo Castle, the symbol of Aizu Wakamatsu City in Fukushima Prefecture, was built about 630 years ago and is officially named Wakamatsu Castle. In 2011 its keep was re-roofed in red tiles, returning the castle to the appearance it held at the close of the Edo period and making it the only red-tiled castle keep in Japan. The five-storey keep counts among the country's 100 most beautiful castles, and inside it now holds a museum of Aizu history. This was the last castle to fall in the Boshin War of 1868.

❖ Oyakuen Garden with Matcha

15:20 - 16:00 (40 min)

Oyakuen began about 600 years ago as a villa for the lord of the Aizu Domain. In 1670 the second daimyo, Hoshina Masatsune, started cultivating medicinal herbs within the grounds, including Korean ginseng, to protect the citizens from epidemics, and from this the garden took its name, which means 'medicinal garden'. Around 400 kinds of medicinal herbs and trees grow here today, in a traditional garden preserved much as it looked long ago and designated a national Place of Scenic Beauty in 1932. The buildings the lord used for relaxation and entertainment still stand, among them rooms devoted to Japanese tea, and visitors can take a cup of herbal tea here even now.

❖ Tsutsumi Factory: Collect Your Paper Knife

Return to Tsutsumi Factory to collect the finished paper knife you forged.

❖ Aizu-Wakamatsu Station

The tour ends at Aizu-Wakamatsu Station.