Shirakawa (白河市) is a city located in the southern portion of Fukushima Prefecture. 
Its actually the next stop after Nasu on the Shinkansen line.. 
I went there to visit the Castle, known as either Shirakawa castle of Komine Castle… However, i didn’t realise that the March 2011 earthquake had caused significant damage and it was closed.  

Shirakawa was known as the gateway to the old Mutsu Province of Japan. Up to the Edo period it had prospered under the control of the Shirakawa clan as a castle town. The castle is quite old, dating back to 1340, a lot of renovation was done by the Matsudaira clan around 1628 including the transfer of 100,000 blocks of stone from the neighboring Tanagura Castle to aid in the expansion of Shirakawa Castle. 
Komine Castle was pretty much destroyed during the Boshin War in 1868, it was reconstructed in the 1990’s, only to have the earthquake damage it severely again..


Thanks to Wikipedia for background