Matsudaira-go Lookout Terrace
The Matsudaira-go Lookout Terrace on Mt. Rokusho, 310 meters above sea level, affords views over the valley of Matsudaira-go, the city of Toyota, and out toward the plains of Nishi-Mikawa. Ise Bay, the Suzuka Mountains, and the skyscrapers of Nagoya are also visible on clear days.
Most of the places central to the history of the Matsudaira samurai family can be viewed from the lookout terrace. These sites include the family’s ancestral home in the valley beneath Mt. Rokusho, the southern and western plains they conquered in the fifteenth century, and the castle town of Okazaki. Okazaki became the Matsudaira seat of power in the first half of the sixteenth century and is the birthplace of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616), the ninth head of the family and the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate that ruled Japan from 1603 to 1867. The lookout terrace is a 20-minute walk uphill from the parking lot next to Matsudaira Toshogu Shrine.