Photo: Daderot at English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)
A self-guided audio walk through the castle town of the Maeda lords of Kaga, starting in Kenroku-en, the garden begun in 1676 and opened to the public in 1874. It passes the two-legged Kotoji Lantern on Kasumiga-ike, the Karasaki Pine with its winter rope supports, the Neagari Pine standing on its raised roots, the Seisonkaku residence of 1863, and the Midori-taki waterfall and Yugao-tei teahouse added by Lord Harunaga. At Kanazawa Castle the walk goes through the Ishikawa-mon, an original Edo-period gate spared by the fire of 1881, the Kahoku-mon, the Hishi Yagura and Gojikken Nagaya rebuilt by traditional methods and finished in 2001, the Sanjikken Nagaya and the Gyokusen'inmaru Garden. It ends at Oyama Shrine, which enshrines Maeda Toshiie behind a gate of 1875 with stained glass, the old Nakaya pharmacy, and the Nagamachi samurai quarter along the Onosho Canal, with the Nomura house and the foot soldiers' houses of the Ashigaru Museum.
18 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 100 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 8 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Kenroku-en, Kotoji Lantern and Kasumiga-ike, Karasaki Pine, Neagari Pine, Seisonkaku, Hisago-ike and Midori-taki, Yugao-tei.
Ishikawa-mon, Kahoku-mon, Hishi Yagura, Gojikken Nagaya and Hashizume-mon, Sanjikken Nagaya, Gyokusen'inmaru Garden.
Oyama Shrine Shinmon, Oyama Shrine, Kanazawa Shinise Memorial Hall, Onosho Canal, Nomura Family Samurai House, Ashigaru Museum.
The two-legged lantern on Kenroku-en's largest pond, one leg on a rock and one in the water, framed with the Rainbow Bridge and the pine.
A black pine whose soil was raised and later removed, leaving about 40 roots standing as much as two metres above the ground.
The castle's original Edo-period rear gate, spared by the 1881 fire, with lead-tiled roofs and carved symbols on its rough-stacked stones.
The watchtower, long storehouse and gate first built in 1632, rebuilt with traditional joinery and finished in July 2001.
The three-storey gate of 1875 that combines Japanese, Chinese and Western styles, with stained-glass windows in its top tier.
A Nagamachi samurai residence of 1843 with painted sliding doors, swords and armour, and a garden fed by the district's watercourses.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 18 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 18 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Kanazawa — Kenroku-en, the Castle and the Samurai Quarter, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
18 narration points, including Kenroku-en, Kotoji Lantern and Kasumiga-ike, Karasaki Pine, Neagari Pine and Seisonkaku. That is about 27 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 18 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.