Today mainly had one goal – visiting the Imperial Palace. A short tour is available, but tequires prior online signup or showing up day-of and hoping there is a spot. I chose the former route.
The Japanese Imperial Family is the worlds oldest hereditary monarchy, going back to 660 BC by some accounts, though only verifiable to 539 AD. Still, quite a while.
Most of that time, the fam has resided in Kyoto, from 794 AD to somewhere around 1868 when the emperor took back power from the Tokugawa Shogunate and moved into part/most/all of what had been Edo Castle, renaming Edo to Tokyo (literally “eastern capitol”) along the way.
Edo castle itself had been just a moderate sized castle until the first Tokugawa shogun made his home base and expanded it significantly, partly as a way of giving the daimyos something to do other than make war with each other.
The net result is (the remains of) a sprawling castle complex which the Imperial Family uses most of, and we got a peek of a small part of.
Getting to the palace starts with historic Tokyo Station.
From there we walked through the downtown Marunouchi district, which itself was once part of the castle complex, to arrive at Edo castle /Imperial Palace.
Out and About 