Only a short walk away from the Yasukuni Shrine and Yushukan is Kitanomaru Park which was once part of the Edo Castle grounds (it connects to the East Garden of the Imperial Palace).  I found it tidy and well laid out but at this time of year rather unremarkable.  It contains the National Museum of Modern Art (mostly Japanese modern art), the Nippon Budokan and the Science Tokyo Museum.

You enter Kitanomaru Park through the Tayasu-mon Gate which was once an entrance to the great Edo castle (see photographs below). Today its massive walls separate the Nippon Budokan and the Yakusuni Shrine. This is a typical Masugata-mon style of gate. The date when the gate was first constructed is not known but the present structure was reconstructed in 1636.  The park is surrounded by a moat and you enter over the bridge shown in the first of the photographs.

Once through the Tayasu-mon Gate you enter the park proper, as nothing was flowering when I was there (February) it is pleasant but not memorable.

I left the park through the Shimizu Mon Gate which is the east gate of the park (and was the east gate of the Edo Castle).  Again its exact date of construction is unknown but it was rebuilt in 1658.

This last photograph is of a section of the moat that surrounds Kitanomaru Park and again shows how close modern Tokyo is to the grounds of the Edo Castle.

Go to the HIJMS Mikasa page

Go to top of page