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This 450-year-old festival is one of the most famous Golden Week festivals in Japan. In what is known as the Takoage Gassen, every neighborhood in the city and even some from other cities design and make their own kites to fly and to fight near at the festival grounds near Nakatajima Sand Dunes, with each kite representing a son born to a family of the neighborhood within the last year. The kite-fighting takes place on the third day of the 3-day festival and results entertainingly in downed kites in trees and on rooftops all over the neighborhood. In the Sunken Garden space on the north side of Act City, there is an international food court with many exotic stalls, and a stage for all kinds of music and cultural performances from around the world, including taiko drumming, local yaramaika music, Thai kickboxing, Brazilian batucada and samba dancing performances, jazz acts, jugglers, and traditional dances. There are also parades all over the city well into the night, in which children playing various instruments are carried in 70 large ornate parade floats. Everywhere there are groups marching and chanting to the sound of trumpets, and the sake flows freely.
Hamamatsu's only skyscraper is a symbol of the city, designed to resemble a harmonica, a reminder that Hamamatsu is sometimes known as the "City of Music". The building houses shopping and a food court, the Okura Hotel, and an observatory on the 45th floor from which you can see all of central Hamamatsu. The basement floor holds two theaters at which there are frequent concerts, musicals, plays, and seminars. On the west side there is a unique rooftop park complex, and on the north there is an outdoor "Sunken Garden" used at festival times for food stalls and cultural performances.
二俣城跡, Futamata-jouseki
Many battles were fought over this castle in the mid-16th century between Ieyasu Tokugawa and Shingen Takeda. In 1579, Tokugawa's wife was executed here and his son committed seppuku here as well. The castle was abandoned after 1600, and today nothing but the walls remain, surrounded by a beautiful park.
浜松城, Hamamatsu-jou
Hamamatsu Castle was built by Ieyasu Tokugawa, who is considered perhaps the greatest shogun and one of the three people most important to the unification of Japan. His rule marks the beginning of the Edo Period. Tokugawa lived here from 1571 to 1588. After the Edo Period, the castle was destroyed, and was restored to the original specifications in 1958. The foundation, which is original, is unique because it uses unhewn stones carefully selected and fitted to lean inward. There is a small museum inside the castle, which costs ¥200 to enter, and which houses some Tokugawa armor and relics, a preserved well moved from elsewhere on the grounds as well as a miniature model of how the city might have looked 400 years ago.
気田川, Ketagawa
This beautiful mountain river flows for 66 km before it joins the Tenryu southwest of Haruno. It's a relaxing place for swimming or kayaking.
気賀関所
This restored checkpoint along the Princess Road was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1601. Now dressed with authentic props, visitors can get a glimpse of how tightly controlled travel in that era was. The gate is especially impressive.
三岳城跡, Mitake Jouseki
A somewhat strenuous hike will bring you to the ruins of a castle built atop 467-m Mt. Mitake in 1340 by the Ii Clan.