GuideTakayama, Gifu, Japan7 min read
Takayama: The Little Kyoto of the Mountains
Sake breweries, morning markets and dark-timbered merchant streets
High in the Hida mountains, Takayama's old town has barely changed since the Edo period. Two days here are the perfect gateway to the Japan Alps.
A merchant town in the mountains
Takayama grew rich supplying timber and master carpenters to the imperial capitals, and its merchants spent the money on houses. The three parallel lanes of Sanmachi Suji are lined with dark latticed facades, low eaves and cedar balls hanging above the doors of sake breweries; a green ball means the new season's brew is young, a brown one means it has matured.
The town wakes early. By seven the Miyagawa morning market is setting out pickles, mountain vegetables, miso and handmade crafts along the river, and by nine the first breweries are pouring tastings for a few hundred yen. Walk the old town before ten, when it fills with visitors, then escape to the Hida Folk Village on the hill, an open-air museum of thatched farmhouses moved here from the surrounding valleys.
In the evening, eat Hida beef. It is marbled like Kobe beef and far easier to find: grilled on a magnolia leaf with miso, served as sushi at street stalls or cooked as sukiyaki in the town's ryokan.
Two days in Takayama
- Day one: Miyagawa market, Sanmachi breweries, Takayama Jinya
- Day one evening: Hida beef dinner and a riverside walk
- Day two: Hida Folk Village and the Yatai Kaikan float museum
- Day two afternoon: bus to Shirakawa-go or the Okuhida onsen villages
Sanmachi Suji
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Saki SakuraAuthor
Sakura JourneysPublisher
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