Kanazawa
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Kanazawa on Honshu’s west coast is the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture. Famed for its arts and crafts, it has several well-preserved areas that are worth visiting. The ‘ruined Kanazawa Castle’, dating from the 1500s and the seat of power of the Maeda clan, doesn’t look very ruined at all, being partially restored to how it looked in the 1850s. It is surrounded by the Kenrokuen Gardens which are amongst Japan’s finest. Nagamachi is known as the ‘Samurai area’, although in reality only one or two of the houses are of samurai origin. Higashi-chaya, the Geisha area, is well preserved with its lanes of wooden houses capturing the spirit of former times – having said that, Geisha areas were out of bounds for Samurai, being the purview of rich patrons and merchants.
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