Yanagawa, in Fukuoka Prefecture, almost doesn't feel like a castle town. After all, the castle's remains (several heavy stone walls covered with greenery) now have two schools sprawling over them, and today the city is more associated with water, willow trees and writers. However Yanagawa's most distinctive feature, its canals, were originally built as an orderly system of moats surrounding this castle. Flanked by ancient, lush trees, its canals make Yanagawa unique.

To merely walk around Yanagawa would be to miss the point. Although the city's neat, gridlike streets take the visitor to its major sights, a boat ride along the canals -- some merely a meter wide, others the width of a small river -- takes you through the most leafy and beautiful sections of the city. Along some canals private homes rise straight out of the stone banks, Venetian-style. Other canals are landscaped with adjacent walkways and submerged flower beds, where irises bloom a brilliant blue in early June. Your boatman will point out Yanagawa's numerous points of interest (and may even burst into song, if you're lucky).

Fans of photographer Nobuyoshi Araki may have seen his photos of Yanagawa, intensely personal and erotic documents of his visit with his beloved wife, Yoko. He also photographed the diverse mix of treasures at Ohana estate, Yanagawa's sightseeing centerpiece, with Yoko posing nude in unusual accompaniment.