Fukuyama Castle Park sits beside Fukuyama Station in Hiroshima Prefecture, which is part of what makes the arrangement odd. For one night the whole park closes and there is nobody in it but you. Several of the buildings inside are nationally designated Important Cultural Properties. The role you are given is lord of the castle, and the evening is built around that rather than around sightseeing. You bathe in the Oyudono, the lord's bathhouse, which went unused for centuries before it was brought back. It is an Edo design, closer to a steam room than a hot bath, so it takes a few minutes to settle into. Dinner began as a thought experiment. When Perry's delegation landed at Uraga in 1853, the man who received them was Masahiro Abe, lord of Fukuyama. Had they come to Fukuyama instead, what would he have put in front of them? The chef worked from period recipes and local ingredients to answer that. There is more in the area than most visitors realise. Noh and other performing arts are still active here, Tomonoura is a short drive along the coast, Kinoshita-Tenjin Shrine is quiet even in season, and several streets of merchant houses survive intact. A concierge builds the rest of the stay around what you want to see.