Photos: Bitchu-Matsuyama-jo Castle, Bitchu-Takahashi, Japan

Here are some more in the series of my Japan-related photos.

I took these whilst on a day trip from Niimi 新見市, in the north of Okayama 岡山県, to Takahashi-shi 高梁市, in the middle of the prefecture. The castle, called Bitchu-Matsuyama-jo 備中松山城, is supposedly the highest in all of Japan: it's not very big, but it is built at an altitiude of 430 metres above sea-level, on the top of a small mountain overlooking the city. Because getting there makes for a very enjoyable - if somewhat arduous - walk from the station, and because there is very rarely anyone there apart from a few monkeys crashing about in the forest, I used to love going there. As a former student of Japanese architecture (I did my postgrad thesis on Katsura-rikyu Detached Palace 桂離宮 in Kyoto), I was capable of sitting for hours just looking at the buildings, breathing in the clean mountain air and admiring both the buildings and the surrounding landscape.

Hope you like the photos: let me know what you think!