Address	13-1 Shōryūji, Nagaokakyō City, Kyoto Prefecture (Google Maps)
Access	About an 11-minute walk (approx. 0.8 km) from JR Nagaokakyō Station. On the way, don't miss the Earthworks and Dry Moat Remains of Shōryūji Castle.
Suggested visit	About 30 minutes for a quick visit; 1–2 hours for a deeper look, including the exhibition room

• Remains of the Gracia Residence: The site of the couple's home has been preserved and restored. Visitors can enjoy a reconstructed garden and a museum that offers insights into daily life during their time.
• Main Enclosure and Exhibition Hall: The park includes an artist's reconstruction of what the castle's tenshu (keep) may have looked like, along with replicas of wedding attire, household items from the Sengoku period, and artifacts related to Tadaoki and Gracia.
• North Gate and Stone Wall Remains: The preserved stone walls and gate structures, likely seen by Gracia herself, allow visitors to physically connect with the history of the place.
• Seasonal Attractions: In spring, cherry blossoms surround the ruins; in autumn, the gardens are wrapped in vibrant foliage. The Gracia Wedding Reenactment held beneath the sakura is especially popular and photogenic.

Shōryūji Castle and the city of Nagaokakyō
Shōryūji Castle once sat on a key transportation route between Settsu (modern-day Osaka) and Kyoto, playing an important role in the defense of the ancient capital. In 1568, as Oda Nobunaga entered Kyoto supporting Ashikaga Yoshiaki's rise to shogunate power, he ousted Iwanari Tomomichi, one of the "Miyoshi Three," who had controlled the castle. Nobunaga then entrusted it to Hosokawa Fujitaka (Yūsai), who reconstructed it in 1571 into a modern stronghold with tiled roofs, stone walls, and a central keep — hallmarks of early modern Japanese castles.

During his time at the castle, Fujitaka received the prestigious Kokin Denju transmission of Kokin Wakashū poetry secrets from Sanjōnishi Sanetaka. In 1578, his son Hosokawa Tadaoki (also known as Sansai) married Tama, the daughter of Akechi Mitsuhide — later known as Gracia after converting to Christianity. The couple began married life at Shōryūji Castle and had two children there.

In 1582, following the Honnō-ji Incident, Mitsuhide betrayed and assassinated Nobunaga, then confronted Toyotomi (then Hashiba) Hideyoshi at the Battle of Yamazaki. The battleground stretched from Yamazaki to the Koizumi River and included the area around Shōryūji Castle. Defeated, Mitsuhide is said to have spent his final night at the castle before fleeing toward Sakamoto Castle; he was ultimately killed near Yamashina or Kamidaigo.

In 1992, the ruins were opened as a public park. Every year on the second Sunday of November, the Nagaokakyō Gracia Festival re-enacts Lady Gracia's bridal procession. The visitor center includes a tourist information area on the 1st floor and a historical exhibition room on the 2nd floor.

Main bailey (honmaru) ruins
Excavations in 1988 confirmed the castle used cutting-edge construction techniques of the time, including roof tiles, palatial foundation stones, and stone walls. The main bailey was a rectangular area roughly 120 m east–west and 80 m north–south, enclosed by earthen embankments 4–5 m high, with a surrounding moat 10–15 m wide and around 3 m deep. Fragments of roof tiles found here closely resemble those excavated at Akechi Mitsuhide's Sakamoto Castle and at Sassa Narimasa's Komaru Castle, suggesting the same molds and traveling tile artisans were used across castles built under Nobunaga's vassals.

Stone wall and well at the eastern rampart
At the center of the main bailey's eastern rampart, archaeologists found a stone-reinforced inner slope and a double row of stone foundations about 4 m wide along the top — likely the base of a long, barrack-style building possibly connected to the northeast corner turret. A well built into a recessed section of the slope was essential for sustaining the castle during a siege.

Well remains in the main bailey
Excavations within the main bailey uncovered four wells in total; three, including this one, are believed to date from Fujitaka's renovations. Built on a wooden crossbeam foundation with natural stones stacked in a circle, it measures about 0.9 m in diameter and 3 m deep — evidence of the site's naturally high groundwater levels.

Stone wall and stair of the northeast corner turret
An earthen embankment about 4 m high at the northeast corner of the main bailey is reinforced with a seven-step stone staircase curving up to a flat area roughly 4 m square, believed to have supported a turret used for monitoring and defending the castle perimeter.

Reused religious stone artifacts
Excavations turned up a large number of repurposed religious stone artifacts built into the castle's walls — gorintō (five-ring pagodas), hōkyōintō (pagoda stupas), tiered pagodas, stone steles, and stone Buddha images, most likely depicting Dainichi Nyorai, with some Jizō Bosatsu figures also identified. Several bear inscribed dates ranging from 1523 to 1569.

The Battle of Yamazaki and Shōryūji Castle
On June 2, 1582, Akechi Mitsuhide assassinated Oda Nobunaga at Honnō-ji Temple; just eleven days later, on June 13, he clashed with Hashiba (Toyotomi) Hideyoshi at the Battle of Yamazaki. The main fighting stretched between Yamazaki and Shōryūji Castle rather than centering on Mount Tennōzan itself. According to some war chronicles, Mitsuhide's main camp stood at Onbō-no-tsuka, near the Egeyama Kofun burial mound in present-day Nagaokakyō. He is believed to have retreated briefly into Shōryūji Castle before fleeing under cover of night toward Sakamoto Castle.

One of Japan's "Top 100 Historic Parks"
Shōryūji Castle Park was selected as one of the "Top 100 Historic Parks in Japan," a designation organized for the 50th anniversary of the Urban Parks Act, in recognition of its preservation and use of historical and cultural assets spanning from ancient to modern times.

One of the "Ten Scenic Views of Otokuni"
As part of a 2020 Kyoto Prefectural regional project, Shōryūji Castle Park was selected as one of ten landscapes within the former Otokuni district recognized for their natural, historic, and cultural value.

Nagaokakyō: a city shaped by strategic location
Nagaokakyō sits at the foot of the Nishiyama mountains between Kyoto and Osaka, and has flourished since ancient times as a crossroads of waterway and land routes. In 784, Emperor Kanmu relocated the imperial capital here from Nara's Heijō-kyō, founding Nagaoka-kyō. Though it served as the capital for only about ten years before the move to Heian-kyō (Kyoto), it was a large, carefully planned city — its political center (Chōdō-in) stood in modern Mukō City, its market area within present-day Nagaokakyō, and its main port faced the Yodo River near Ōyamazaki. The wider area is also home to the Otokuni Kofun Group, a nationally designated Historic Site of elite burial mounds sharing features with tombs of the ruling Yamato dynasty, and it remains known today as a center of Kyoto-style tender bamboo-shoot cultivation, a tradition recorded as far back as the 927 CE Engishiki.

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In 1578, Tama, the daughter of Akechi Mitsuhide, married Hosokawa Tadaoki, heir of Hosokawa Fujitaka, lord of Shōryūji Castle — a match arranged at the recommendation of Fujitaka's overlord, Oda Nobunaga. After the wedding, Tama lived at the castle for about two years, until the couple moved to Tango Province; these are believed to have been the happiest years of her life.

In 1582, her father Mitsuhide staged the Honnō-ji Incident, assassinating Nobunaga. Seeking support from his former allies, he approached Fujitaka and Tadaoki — who refused him. Mitsuhide was soon defeated by Hashiba (Toyotomi) Hideyoshi at the Battle of Yamazaki and killed while fleeing toward Sakamoto. Following his death, Fujitaka and Tadaoki confined Tama to Midono in Tango Province (present-day Kyōtango City). Later released and relocated to the Hosokawa residence in Tamatsukuri, Osaka, she continued to live under heavy restriction.

It was during this period that Tama encountered Jesuit missionaries and began exploring Christianity. In 1587 she was baptized and took the Christian name Gracia, from the Latin word for "grace." After Hideyoshi's death, as tensions rose between Tokugawa Ieyasu's Eastern Army and Ishida Mitsunari's Western Army, the Western forces sought to seize the families of Eastern-aligned daimyō as hostages, targeting the Hosokawa residence in Osaka. Gracia refused to be taken hostage; she ordered her retainers to set fire to the residence and ended her own life rather than be captured. She died in 1600 at the age of 38, shortly before the decisive Battle of Sekigahara.

Address	13-1 Shōryūji, Nagaokakyō City, Kyoto Prefecture (Google Maps)
Access	Located within the grounds of Shōryūji Castle Park
Suggested visit	About 10 minutes for a quick highlight; 30–45 minutes exploring the entire castle ruins park

• Masugata-kōguchi (square gate design): This L-shaped defensive layout was designed to trap and expose invading enemies, combining sharp turns and elevated stone walls.
• Nozurazumi stone wall technique: The surviving lower section, built roughly 450 years ago, features rugged, natural stones arranged in an unpolished yet solid structure.
• Reused stones (tenyōseki): Sacred stones such as fragments of Buddhist statues and gorintō (five-ring pagodas) were repurposed into the wall — look closely and you may spot the base of a Buddha figure embedded in the structure.
• Seasonal beauty: In spring, cherry blossoms bloom above the stone walls; in autumn, moss-covered stones contrast with red and gold leaves.

Stone walls of Shōryūji Castle
The walls were built using nozurazumi, stacking natural, unshaped stones without mortar — cutting-edge castle-building technology for its time. Some stones exceed one meter in size. Aside from repurposed gorintō and Buddhist images, most of the stone is sandstone and chert, common throughout the Nishiyama mountains to the west, and is believed to have been quarried from cliffs and riverbeds along the rivers flowing from those foothills. The lower tier of the North Gate stone wall and the gate's foundation stones are original, in-situ remains from the castle's Sengoku-period construction, uncovered during excavation.

North Gate remains
At the northwest corner of the main bailey, the gate's foundation stones and surrounding walls remain in excellent condition. The gate was double-layered, with stone walls standing over two meters high. After crossing the moat and entering from the north, the path turns sharply east at a right angle to a second gate — the masugata-kōguchi layout, designed to slow attackers while letting defenders strike from atop the embankments. It is said that Akechi Mitsuhide, after his defeat by Hashiba (Toyotomi) Hideyoshi at the Battle of Yamazaki, fled through this very North Gate.

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Address	13-1 Shōryūji, Nagaokakyō City, Kyoto Prefecture (Google Maps)
Access	Inside the grounds of Shōryūji Castle Park
Suggested visit	About 15 minutes for the exhibits only; 30–45 minutes including video materials and interpretive panels

• Tadaoki's armor and the memory of Sekigahara: A replica of the armor Tadaoki wore during the pivotal Battle of Sekigahara is on display, along with anecdotes about his volatile temperament — including the story of him executing a roofer for delayed repairs.
• Hosokawa family tree and political alliances: Exhibits trace the lineage from Tadaoki's father, Hosokawa Fujitaka, including how Tadaoki received the character "忠" ("loyalty") from Nobunaga's son Nobutada, and the story of Toyotomi Hideyoshi granting him the name "Hashiba."
• Tea culture and Sen no Rikyū: As one of the "Seven Disciples of Rikyū," Tadaoki held the tea ceremony in high regard, and the exhibit features materials reflecting his cultural sophistication.
• Gracia's faith and inner conflict: Displays trace Gracia's transformation — from her wedding and the birth of her children (including heir Tadataka) at Shōryūji Castle, to her eventual conversion to Christianity under the influence of Takayama Ukon, and her end taking her own life behind a paper sliding door to preserve her faith.
• International perspective: Gracia's death was recorded by European missionaries, earning her recognition abroad as the "Oriental Saint."
• Fujitaka's cultural defiance: After the Honnō-ji Incident, Fujitaka refused to join Mitsuhide's rebellion — not out of fear, but due to his commitment to completing the Kokin Denju, a sacred literary rite. This cultural conviction is believed to have spared his life.

Address	2-16-3 Higashikōtari, Nagaokakyō City, Kyoto Prefecture (next to Kōtari Shrine, Google Maps)
Access	About an 8-minute walk (approx. 600 m) from JR Nagaokakyō Station
Suggested visit	About 15 minutes for a brief visit; 30–45 minutes reading the explanatory signs and studying the layout

• 6-meter-high earthen embankment: From the base of the moat to the crest, the embankment stands around 6 m tall, with a width of 7.5 m and a crest width of 3.4 m. Informational boards illustrate this scale with diagrams, and the visible layered cross-section reveals the precise techniques used in its construction.
• Deep dry moat and earthen bridge: The moat includes a preserved yokoya-gakari (angled defense line) and a narrow earthen bridge that spans the trench, features that let defenders control enemy access and create natural choke points.
• A rare example of sōgamae fortifications: Unlike typical castle defenses that protect only the main keep, this sōgamae surrounded the entire castle town — a level of strategic foresight that is rare even on a national scale.
• Interpretive panels and layout diagrams: Located on the grounds of nearby Kōtari Shrine, these panels explain the historical and structural significance of the earthworks and moats with detailed illustrations.

Address	19-25 Shōryūji, Nagaokakyō City, Kyoto Prefecture (Google Maps)
Access	About a 10–12 minute walk from JR Nagaokakyō Station (East Exit), or about 20–30 minutes on foot from Nagaoka-Tenjin Station (HK-77) or Nishiyama-Tennōzan Station (HK-76) on the Hankyu Kyoto Line
Suggested visit	About 20 minutes for the main hall and garden; about 1 hour for the full experience, including goshuin and programs
Reception hours	9:00–16:00 (per Nagaokakyō City’s official site; admission fee not listed there — confirm locally)

• Main hall & Eleven-Headed Kannon statue: This Kamakura-period statue, a designated Important Cultural Property, is displayed to the public during special events such as the Kannon Grand Festival (August 18) and the Gracia Festival (2nd Sunday of November).
• "Victory over the dragon" plaque and sacred rope: The main hall displays a calligraphy plaque reading "Ryū ni Katsu" (To Defeat the Dragon). Each year, a majestic upward-facing dragon-shaped shimenawa (sacred rope) is replaced during major temple festivals.
• Artistic goshuin & temple yoga: Visitors can collect seasonal paper-cutting goshuin, join yoga sessions, or combine a kirie (paper-cutting) workshop with herbal tea.
• Hotei Market & wellness offerings: On the second Sunday of every month (except January and August), the temple hosts a lively Hotei-ichi market with local vendors, workshops, and Buddhist-themed goods.