Matsumoto City Museum — Attraction in Matsumoto

I truly enjoyed my time at the Matsumoto City Museum on my day-trip from Tokyo. The museum is located just 6-8 minutes’ walk from Matsumoto Castle and is a must see when you’re in town. The building itself looks like an architectural gem, with modern and Japanese designs both on the exterior and the interior of the structure. The indoor space is spacious and beautifully designed, worthy a trip just on its own. The exhibitions are great as well, with the main exhibition being the permanent one, showing the roots of Matsumoto and all the things that the city is known for. The city model exhibited in the permanent exhibition is amazing and the attention to detail is incredible. Unfortunately, when I visited the museum, the other gallery was closed temporarily but I would still highly, highly recommend visiting this museum when you...

Wonderful and delightful museum that highlights the culture and history of Matsumoto. For us, it was the perfect museum to visit before going to the Matsumoto castle.

The expansive diorama portraying the layout of the city provided an educational view of how it was designed to defend against enemies. One can easily spend 40 mins just looking at and studying the miniature houses and the maps. The videos also help in understanding the intent behind the layout and definitely make one appreciate the castle even more.

The rest of the museum is also rich in displaying its culture, heritage, and geography. Which complements the diorama wonderfully.

Highly recommend visiting before the castle and certainly worth 90 mins...

A small regional museum detailing the history of Matsumoto, Nagano. Permanent exhibition is on the top floor. The model of the city is very impressive and detailed. The architecture in this building is stunning. Displays all had English translations and I spent about an hour here reading all the displays on level 3. I was hoping for a bit of information on the prehistory/natural history of the area (how it was underwater. whale fossils etc) but that may be the subject of a future exhibit perhaps. Small gift...