Uchi-Kyoguchimon Gate

This reconstructed gate in Himeji's old castle town marks what was once a ceremonial threshold. Its name translates as 'inner Kyoto passage,' and a road once connected it to a second gate on the town's eastern edge, linking to the Saikoku Kaido highway toward Kyoto. During the Edo period, local lords and their processions passed through here on their required journeys to and from Edo, with townspeople lining the route to see them off and welcome them home. The moat in front was restored in the 1990s, giving the site a sense of its original layout.