Takayama Travel Guide

Takayama sits high in the mountains of Gifu prefecture, cut off enough by geography that it developed its own carpentry tradition, its own festival culture and its own way of doing things. Its merchant quarter survived the wars and the modernisation that flattened most equivalents, so the old town here is genuinely old.

It is small, walkable and best given a full day and a night. Most people pair it with Shirakawago, and the two together make one of the better two day detours in Japan.

The old town

Sanmachi Suji is three narrow streets of dark wooden merchant houses from the Edo period, many still working as sake breweries, craft shops and cafes. The lattice frontages and overhanging eaves are the reason people photograph it, and it is at its best early before the coaches arrive.

Several of the sake breweries offer tastings, marked by a cedar ball, or sugidama, hanging above the door. It is fresh and green when the new sake is ready and browns as the year goes on.

Takayama Jinya is the only surviving provincial government building from the Tokugawa era, complete with its rice storehouse and interrogation room. It gives a clearer picture of how the shogunate actually administered the country than most castles do.

The festival and the floats

The Takayama Matsuri runs twice a year, in April and October, and is counted among the three most beautiful festivals in Japan. Enormous ornate floats, some carrying mechanical marionettes, are pulled through the streets.

Outside those dates, the Festival Floats Exhibition Hall displays several of the actual floats in rotation, and the Karakuri Museum demonstrates the marionettes. The engineering in them is remarkable given they date from the eighteenth century.

Beyond Shirakawago

Takayama is the gateway to the Northern Alps, and there is a good deal more within reach than the one famous village.

Kamikochi is the finest alpine valley in Japan, a river plain ringed by 3,000 metre peaks, open from mid April to mid November and closed to private cars. Buses run from Takayama in about 90 minutes. The walk from Taisho Pond to Myojin Pond is flat, easy and spectacular.

Shinhotaka Ropeway has the only double decker cable car in Japan and lifts you to just over 2,150 metres for a view across the Hotaka range. It runs year round, and the winter view over snow covered peaks is extraordinary.

Gero Onsen, an hour south on the same rail line, is rated among the three best hot spring towns in Japan. Okuhida is a cluster of five onsen villages in the mountains north east, many with open air baths looking straight at the Alps.

Hida beef, and where to eat it

Hida beef is wagyu from Gifu prefecture, graded to the same standards as Kobe and, by a good many Japanese, considered its equal at a lower price. It comes from black haired Japanese cattle raised in the prefecture for at least fourteen months.

You will find it three ways here. Sit down restaurants serve it as steak, sukiyaki or hoba miso, grilled at your table on a magnolia leaf over a small charcoal burner with sweet miso. Street stalls in Sanmachi Suji sell Hida beef sushi, two pieces served on a rice cracker, which is the easiest way to try it. And butchers in the old town sell skewers and croquettes to eat as you walk.

Morning markets and food

Two morning markets run daily, one along the Miyagawa river and one in front of Takayama Jinya. They start around seven and wind down by noon, selling produce, pickles, crafts and breakfast.

Hida beef is the local speciality and, for many people, the equal of Kobe beef at a lower price. It turns up as steak, as sushi on a rice cracker from street stalls, and in the local hoba miso, grilled on a magnolia leaf over a small burner.

Sake is the other local product worth your time. Six breweries still operate in the old town, using rice grown in the Hida basin and snowmelt water from the Alps. Most open for tastings through the winter brewing season and several run year round, and the cedar ball hanging above the door tells you where to look.

Shirakawago

About fifty minutes by bus, and a UNESCO World Heritage site. The village is made up of gassho-zukuri farmhouses, built with steep thatched roofs shaped like hands in prayer to shed the heavy snow that falls here.

The Shiroyama viewpoint above the village gives the classic photograph. Winter is the signature season, with several evenings of light-up in January and February that book out far in advance. Buses should be reserved ahead in autumn and winter.

Where to stay

Staying the night is the whole point here, so this matters more than in most towns. Takayama has an unusually high concentration of ryokan and minshuku for its size, many family run, and several with hot spring baths fed from the local source.

Anywhere within the compact centre works, since you can walk end to end in twenty minutes. Staying near the old town puts you in the lanes at dawn, which is when they are empty and at their best.

Rooms book out months ahead for the April and October festivals and for the winter Shirakawago light-up dates. Outside those, availability is usually reasonable even at short notice.

Hida Folk Village

An open air museum a short bus ride from the centre, holding around thirty traditional buildings relocated from across the Hida region, including several gassho-zukuri farmhouses of the Shirakawago type.

Unlike Shirakawago, you can go inside most of them and see how they were lived in, with the irori hearth in the floor, the silkworm lofts upstairs and the smoke blackened roof timbers. Craft demonstrations run through the day. It is the better option if the Shirakawago bus is full or if you want the domestic detail rather than the postcard view.

Temples and the walk east

Higashiyama Walking Course runs about three and a half kilometres through the hillside temple district east of the old town, taking in more than a dozen temples and shrines and the ruins of Takayama Castle. It takes an hour or two and is almost entirely quiet, even when Sanmachi Suji is full.

Sakurayama Hachimangu at the northern end is the shrine the autumn festival belongs to, and the Festival Floats Exhibition Hall sits beside it.

When to visit

Takayama sits at around 570 metres in a mountain basin, so it is colder than the coastal cities in winter and pleasantly cool in summer when Kyoto and Tokyo are sweltering.

Winter brings heavy snow, which is when Shirakawago looks its best and when the town is at its most atmospheric. Autumn colour through the surrounding mountains peaks in late October. The two festival weeks in mid April and mid October are the busiest by a wide margin.

Getting there and around

The limited express Hida runs from Nagoya in about two and a half hours, up a river gorge that is a genuinely scenic ride. From Tokyo, go via Nagoya, or via Toyama on the Hokuriku Shinkansen and down.

The town itself is small enough to walk end to end in twenty minutes. Bicycles are widely available and useful for the outlying temples and the Hida Folk Village.

How long do you need

One night is the minimum and two is better. The old town empties in the late afternoon when the day trippers leave, and Takayama in the evening, with the lanterns on and the streets quiet, is the version worth staying for.

Frequently asked questions

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