Shikano Castle Town

Shikano was the seat of the Kamei family in the Sengoku period, and the street plan they laid out is still there — a grid of narrow lanes with the inner and outer moats of the castle surviving as water. It is a very small town in the hills south-west of Tottori city, quiet to the point of being sleepy, and it has none of the visitor infrastructure that Kurayoshi has.

The castle site is now a park, and in April its five hundred somei-yoshino come out around the moats and are lit at night, so that the trees and the walls repeat themselves in the water. Outside that fortnight the town is essentially empty. Parking is free, the hot spring at Hamamura is ten minutes away, and it is the sort of place you stop at because you were driving past rather than because anyone told you to.