Ishikawa Gate

This guide to Ishikawa Gate in Kanazawa starts at the stone wall beside it, where one hand can trace two different centuries of masonry left by separate building crews working generations apart. It follows the Maeda, the family that ruled the Kaga domain for nearly three centuries with wealth second only to the Tokugawa shogunate, through a string of fires that kept undoing what that wealth built, including blazes in 1631 and 1759 that led to the gate you see today. The guide dwells on the pale lead roof tiles overhead, favored for shedding heavy snow, and on a local rumor about what else they were good for in a siege. Look closely at where the two masonry styles meet before you pass through.