I hear what you’re saying. Even in Kyōto, going just a few blocks away from anything without a tour bus in front of it will reveal some seriously ugly & crowded streets.

And there are several periods of history that Japanese people have no interest in. I hope I haven’t overstated that. To be fair, my knowledge of Australian history or historical buildings is mighty poor.

Well, there’s good news & bad news. Rest assured, the site was excavated, notes & photographs were taken. In addition to the numerous studies, someone took the time to contribute a fair amount to the Mugishima Castle wikipedia page (Japanese).

And the good news continues, the site has indeed been preserved under the road. But for those of us without x-ray vision, we’ll just have to settle for whatever can be put on display at the local museum.

I’m curious as to what kind of road this was supposed to be. Was it supposed to allow access to the residences along the sides? I imagine not since the area has been closed off for so many years. Why not just build an elevated road that leaves the underside accessible so that continued research on the castle could occur? It could have even been used to increase tourism in the area.

I like history and I like castles so this is a bit disappointing.