Inuyama Castle

Before you go

• The keep has no elevator, and everyone climbs narrow, steep stairs (those to the third floor are said to be about 50 degrees), using the same stairs both ways. Leave your stroller at the stroller parking beside the ticket office and bring a baby carrier, the safer choice on these stairs.
• Reaching the ticket office is a climb too: every route from the foot of the castle hill ends in stone steps, and the way has many slopes and stairs. Along the longer slope, one family's stroller took two people, one lifting the front, and the shortcut through Sanko Inari Shrine is stairs and gravel. The castle town below is flat and easy with a stroller, except the narrow lanes of Showa Yokocho.
• Free strollers can be borrowed at the Inuyama Station tourist information center and the castle-front tourist information center in the No. 1 parking lot, 9:00–16:30 (except when the centers are closed or on shortened hours). They cannot be reserved, need a signed consent form, must go back the same day to where you borrowed them, and may all be out or under maintenance.
• On weekends, holidays and in peak seasons (cherry blossoms, autumn leaves, and Golden Week, Japan's early-May holidays), the wait to climb the keep can top an hour, and two hours on the official forecast's "very crowded" days. In March 2026, on the cherry blossoms' full-bloom day, a family with a 6-year-old gave up at a 100-minute wait. There is no booking, so on a weekday aim for right after the 9:00 opening, when visitors have walked straight in, or for after 15:00 (last entry is 16:30), and check the waiting time on the official website.
• Hours are 9:00–17:00 (last entry 16:30, and entry may be limited when it is crowded), closed December 29–31; in 2026 they were 8:30–17:30 for the Inuyama Festival (April 4–5) and Golden Week (April 29–May 6). The castle may close when weather warnings are issued, with closures posted on its website. Admission is ¥1,000 for adults, ¥200 for elementary and junior-high students and free for preschoolers; it rose in March 2026, so listings showing ¥550 are out of date. The ticket machine for castle-only tickets takes cards, but the only bills it accepts are ¥1,000 notes, and combination tickets are cash only at the staffed window. Tickets cannot be reissued, changed or refunded once bought.
• There are no toilets or rest areas inside the keep, so use the restroom just inside the entrance gate, on the right, first. Only lidded drinks may go in, and large bags cannot go in: use the many coin lockers outside the ticket gates of Meitetsu Inuyama Station, or those at the castle-front information center or beside the ticket office (a 2012 visitor found few there). The official guide has you take off your shoes and carry them in a bag, though one visitor describes plastic shoe covers instead. The wooden stairs are slippery in stockings or tights, and coming down facing backward is said to be safer. At the top, the balcony's railing is very low and its walkway narrow, and a notice tells parents to keep holding children's hands. The balcony is one-way, so you normally go all the way around it before you can join the line for the stairs down; one visitor too scared to go around told staff and was allowed, as an exception, to join the line down.
• For nursing, there is a nursing room in the general restroom on the keep square, and the family restroom has a fold-down changing bed and a baby chair. At the castle-front tourist information center, staff will screen off a nursing space if you ask, and its family restroom has a baby bed. Packed lunches are fine in the paid area past the entrance gate but not inside the keep; take your trash home, and in the castle town, do not eat while walking.