Sendai to Hakodate.

7.30am start today. Walked to the station and caught the 8.00am bullet train (our last) to Kikoni which is as far north as the bullet train goes. To get from Kikoni to Hakodate, we took a 15 minute ride in a local commuter train.

Sendai to Kikoni is about 382kms which we covered in about three hours. The line is to be extended to Sapporo by about 2030.

To get from Honshu to Hokkaido, the train travels through a tunnel 53kms long, 23 of which are undersea.

A coach was waiting for us at the station to take us to our hotel. We left our bags at reception, went into the restaurant and had lunch. Afterwards we visited Fort Goryokaku.

Goryokaku is a star fort. The fortress was completed in 1866. It was the main headquarters of the short-lived Republic of Ezo.

Goryokaku was designed in 1855 by Takeda Ayasaburō. His plan was based on the work of the French architect Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban. The fortress was completed in 1866, two years before the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate.

It is shaped like a five-pointed star. This allowed for greater numbers of gun emplacements on its walls than a traditional Japanese fortress, and reduced the number of blind spots where a cannon could not fire.

The fort was built by the Tokugawa shogunate to protect Tsugaru Strait against a possible invasion by the Russian fleet. It became the capital of the Republic of Ezo, a state that existed only in 1869. It was the site of the last battle of the Boshin War between the Republic and the Empire of Japan. The fighting lasted for a week (June 20–27, 1869).

Today, Goryokaku is a park declared as a Special Historical Site, being a part of the Hakodate city museum and a citizens' favorite spot for cherry-blossom viewing in spring.

There is a tower next to the park with an observation deck at the top - this is the only way to see the star shape of the fort.Read more