Three days in Takayama: a carpenters' town in the Alps, with Shirakawa-go an hour up the road

Two nights in one inn: the shogun's office and the black timber merchant lanes on arrival, a day out at the thatched farmhouses of Shirakawa-go, and the morning market before the train.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Takayama
Places
7 across 3 days
OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

Hida is a province of steep forest with almost no rice land, so it paid its taxes in timber and in carpenters. Its craftsmen were sent to build the capitals at Nara and Kyoto, and they were good enough that in 1692 the shogunate took the province into direct rule, pulled down the castle and ran Takayama from an office in the middle of town. That office is still standing and you can walk through it.

What the town got out of two centuries of forestry money is the old quarter: three lanes of dark timber shopfronts, sake breweries among them, all still standing because Takayama was too far up the valley for anybody to bomb or redevelop.

It is also the gateway to Shirakawa-go, an hour west by bus, where a hundred thatched farmhouses with roofs like steepled hands sit in a valley that spends the winter under metres of snow. That is a day out, and it is the reason to give Takayama three days instead of one.

The town itself is small enough to cross in twenty minutes on foot. That leaves an afternoon, a full day and a morning, which is exactly what there is to do here.

Highlights

  • The shogun's provincial office, the only one left in Japan
  • Sanmachi's three lanes of black timber, and a sake tasting at ten in the morning
  • Shirakawa-go's thatched farmhouses, and a fire lit in one of them
  • Hida beef, grilled at the table on a magnolia leaf with miso

Where to stay

Takayama, two nights

One base for all three days. The old town, the station, the bus terminal and the market are inside a fifteen minute walk of each other.

The Miyagawa river runs north to south through the middle. The merchant quarter is on its east bank and almost everything else is within two streets of it.

Day by day

Day 1 in Takayama

The shogun's office, the old lanes and a merchant's house

Start at the government office by the river, because it explains why the rest of the town looks the way it does, then cross into the old quarter and work north.

Sanmachi is three parallel lanes and it is busy in the middle of the day and lovely at either end of it. Late afternoon, when the coaches have gone and the shopkeepers are putting out lanterns, is the hour to walk it.

  1. 14:30

    Takayama Jinya

    Other

    The shogunate governed Hida directly from this compound for nearly two centuries, and it went on serving as local government offices until 1969, which is why it survived when every other provincial office in Japan did not. Tatami rooms, an interrogation room with the gravel and the stone weights still in it, and a rice storehouse at the back, built of enormous timbers, that is the largest original building of its kind left in the country.

  2. 16:00

    Sanmachi

    Landmark

    Three narrow lanes of dark, low merchant houses with deep eaves and lattice fronts, preserved whole rather than reconstructed. Sake breweries, craft shops, cafes in old warehouses and a few of the larger houses open as museums. It is thoroughly touristed and still worth every minute. Look for the cedar balls over the brewery doorways, which go up green when the new sake is ready and fade to brown as the year goes on.

  3. 17:45

    Kusakabe Mingei-kan

    Visit

    Ten minutes north, a merchant's house rebuilt in 1879 after the fire that took the last one, and the best place in town to see what Hida carpenters could actually do: a lattice of huge beams over an open hall, all of it joined rather than nailed. It is furnished with the family's things and there is usually nobody else inside.

  4. 19:00

    Hida beef for dinner

    Eat

    Grill houses cluster on the streets between the old town and the station. Ask for hoba miso alongside whatever cut you order.

With more time: The Higashiyama walking course starts near the old town and loops three and a half kilometres through a chain of temples and shrines on the eastern slope, finishing in the park where the castle stood until the shogunate pulled it down. An hour and a half, and almost nobody on it.

Day 2 in Takayama

Shirakawa-go and the thatched farmhouses

The bus to Ogimachi, the main village of Shirakawa-go, takes about fifty minutes each way through tunnels under the mountains. Go on the earliest one you can face: the day trippers from Kanazawa and Nagoya arrive around eleven and the village is small.

Climb to the viewpoint on the slope above the village first, for the shot everybody comes for, then walk down into it and go inside the houses. The roofs are the whole point: thatch half a metre thick pitched at about sixty degrees, built without nails, rethatched by the whole village working together, and that steep because of what the winter drops on them.

  1. 10:00

    Wada House

    Other

    The largest house in the village and the home of its old headman family, who grew rich on saltpetre and silkworms. Three floors, the top two open as a loft where the silkworms were raised, with the roof structure exposed above you. Family possessions and lacquerware downstairs.

  2. 11:30

    Kanda House

    Visit

    A smaller farmhouse a few minutes away with the hearth fire always lit, which is not for atmosphere: the smoke is what preserves the thatch and the timber from the inside. Climb to the third floor for the best view anywhere of how one of these roofs is actually put together, and there are windows up there looking out over the other houses.

  3. 12:30

    Lunch in the village

    Eat

    A handful of houses serve soba, river fish grilled on skewers over charcoal, and Hida beef. Everything shuts by mid afternoon.

  4. 14:00

    Gassho-zukuri Minkaen

    Visit

    Across the river on the far bank, an open-air museum of about twenty five farmhouses moved here from valleys that were flooded by dams or abandoned, some of them from the eighteenth century. It is quieter than the village and better organised for understanding what you are looking at, with demonstrations of thatching and weaving in some of the buildings.

With more time: If you would rather not spend the day on a bus, the Hida Folk Village on the hill above Takayama does the same thing on a smaller scale: thirty odd relocated mountain buildings, thatched roofs, working craftsmen, and a ten minute bus ride instead of an hour.

Day 3 in Takayama

The morning market and the festival floats

The market along the river opens at seven and packs up around noon, which makes it the right thing to do on a last morning. It is small, it is aimed at visitors as much as at locals now, and it is still where you buy pickles, apples and a hand-sewn sarubobo doll from the woman who made it.

After that, walk ten minutes north to the hall where the festival floats are kept, and be at the station for an early afternoon train.

  1. 08:00

    Miyagawa Morning Market

    Other

    Stalls set up along the east bank of the Miyagawa every morning of the year, selling mountain vegetables, pickles, miso, apples, and the red faceless sarubobo dolls that Hida grandmothers have always made for their grandchildren. Take cash, and take the free samples of pickles seriously: they are how you work out which jar to buy.

  2. 10:00

    Takayama Yatai Kaikan

    Visit

    The Takayama Festival's floats are three-storey lacquered carriages with gilt fittings and mechanical puppets on the top, and outside the two festival weeks they live in storehouses around the town. Four of them are always on display here, rotated through the year, close enough to see the carving. Ten minutes and worth it even if you find festival floats an unpromising subject.

With more time: The second market of the morning sets up in front of the shogun's office and is smaller and more about produce than crafts, and it is two minutes off the walk back to the station.

Before you go

Where to stay

Between the station and the river is the sensible middle: ten minutes on foot from the old lanes, five from the bus terminal for Shirakawa-go, and level all the way.

This is a good place to spend the money on a ryokan. The traditional inns here have wooden baths, hot spring water and a Hida beef dinner served in your room, and at Takayama prices that costs less than the equivalent in Kyoto.

The town empties in the evening once the coaches leave. Book somewhere that feeds you, or find out before six which of the small restaurants take walk-ins.

Getting in and around

The Hida limited express runs up the river gorge from Nagoya in two to two and a half hours, and down from Toyama in an hour and a half. From Tokyo, either route works and both take about four and a half hours in total, so pick by which shinkansen suits you.

Express buses from Shinjuku in Tokyo take five and a half hours and cost a fraction of the train. There are also direct buses from Kanazawa and Matsumoto, which is how most people arrive from the Japan Sea side.

In town, walk. Takayama station does not accept IC cards for local tickets, so keep cash for anything on the JR line, and buy Shirakawa-go bus tickets in advance at the terminal because they sell out at weekends.

Season and weather

Takayama is high and continental: winter nights below minus ten, deep snow from December to March, and summer days that can swing from cool morning to thirty five degrees.

The Takayama Festival runs twice a year, in mid April and early October, when the carved festival floats come out of their storehouses and are pulled through the streets. It is one of the great festivals in Japan and every bed in the valley is booked months ahead.

Winter is quieter, harder and arguably better: the old lanes under snow, lit up on some evenings, and Shirakawa-go buried to the eaves.

Eating and drinking

Hida beef is the local wagyu and it is everywhere, from a proper sit-down grill to a skewer eaten in the street or pressed into a bun. It is not cheap, but it is cheaper here than the same grade would be anywhere else.

Hoba miso is the dish to order alongside it: sweet miso with spring onion and mushrooms grilled at your table on a dried magnolia leaf over a small burner, eaten with rice.

Six or seven sake breweries operate in the old town, using mountain water and Hida rice, and most run tastings for a few hundred yen. A cedar ball hanging over a doorway means a brewery, and its colour tells you how far into the season this year's brew is.

Takayama is a small mountain town that got rich on wood and stayed intact because it was too far from everywhere to be worth changing.

Take the early bus west, come back for the beef, and be at the market by eight.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is Takayama worth two nights or is one enough?
One night gets you the old town and the government office, which is a good stop between Nagoya and Kanazawa. Two nights is what lets you give Shirakawa-go a proper day rather than a rushed afternoon, and it puts you in the old lanes in the evening when they are empty.
Should I stay overnight in Shirakawa-go instead?
A night in one of the farmhouse guesthouses is a real experience and there are very few beds, so it books out months ahead. If you can get one, take it. Otherwise the bus day described here covers the village comfortably.
When is the Takayama Festival?
Mid April and early October, two days each time. It is spectacular and it doubles the price of every room in the valley, so decide early whether you are going for it or avoiding it.
How do I get to Shirakawa-go?
Buses from the Takayama terminal beside the station, about fifty minutes. Most services are reserved, so buy the day before or online, particularly at weekends and in autumn.
Can I change the order of the days?
Copy the trip and rearrange it. Only the market has to be a morning, and only Shirakawa-go really wants a whole day.