Maruoka Castle's unique stone roof tiles

Besides being the oldest castle tower (tenshu) from Japan, for the visitor interested in the history of Japanese castles, the Maruoka-jō from Fukui also offers some unique traits. When you climb at the upper floors of the castle, if you look outside, you will see its unique roof tiles, made of Shakutani stone.

These are extremely heavy tiles, weighting in total about 120 tons, and although they look more rugged than the usual castle roof tiles, were selected by the builders because they are very resistant to the low temperatures from this region. And as you can see, after 4 centuries, they look quite well...