Exploring Takayama in Gifu Prefecture

For a taste of traditional Japan, Takayama in Gifu prefecture is a great place to visit! As well as the famous festivals it holds in Spring and Autumn, Takayama has preserved shopping streets and some quirky museums too. Yes that’s right – we’ve got another niche museum coming up (this time featuring robot drummers)!

Takayama is situated in central Japan and is surrounded by the Japanese Alps. It’s a good stop off point between Nagoya and Kanazawa if you’re travelling around the region, and the traditional grass-thatched roofs of Shirakawa-go are also only an hour away. For more inspiration you can read about my itinerary around the Chūbu region.

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Where I stayed in Takayama

As Takayama is in a hot spring area it’s the perfect place to have an onsen experience. I stayed in the new Orinkaku wing of the Hida Takayama Green Onsen Hotel and wow. Not only is it super fancy (without being extortionately priced), but bathing in the outdoor rock onsen was heavenly!

 

Things to do in Takayama

Go shopping along the preserved streets

Exploring the preserved streets of Takayama is a lot of fun! As well as sake breweries, there are shops selling a range of items including jewellery, fabrics, food items and traditional gifts. One shop in particular, called Usagiya, sells lots of rabbit-themed items and pottery.

As you walk down the streets you’ll notice a lot of colourful little dolls for sale. These are Sarubobo dolls! In days gone by they were given to grant protection (amongst other things) to the recipient. These days though they are said to bring luck in various aspects of life, depending on their colour. I found the dolls a bit weird at first given they don’t have a face, but after a while I actually kind of warmed to them!

 

Try some amazing food!

Although the shop selling wagyu beef skewers was closed when I visited, I was able to get some Hida beef sushi instead. I got two pieces – one with salt, and one with soy sauce and ginger, served on some sort of cracker. It was amazing!

Speaking of food, if you fancy treating yourself to a Michelin recommended restaurant, Sumikyu is a couple of minutes walk from the preserved streets. This family-owned restaurant has been serving handmade soba noodles for four generations now and is well worth a visit. I had kake soba (which can be served hot or cold) and it was delicious. You can also buy the noodles to take home if you like.

 

Go back in time at the Showa-kan museum

The Showa era ran from 1926 to 1989. Despite the dramatic events that went on throughout the Showa era as a whole, during its latter years Japan underwent a period of huge economic prosperity and so many consider these years to be a ‘golden era’ of sorts. I first saw the Showa museum on one of Chris Broad’s videos and thought it might be quite fun to visit. 

 

There are no explainers here in any language whatsoever but it almost doesn’t matter. The Showa-kan museum is arranged into a series of ‘home rooms’ and businesses packed full of decor and items from the time. For example, there’s an old ramen shop, a hairdressers, and a classroom, too. There were a number of groups looking round when I visited and it was really sweet watching the older generations reminiscing about some of the items to their families.

 

 

Explore a restored Edo-period government building

If you’re interested in learning more about the history of Takayama, Takayama Jinya is a restored Edo-period building which was used by the local governor to oversee the area. Here you can see where they worked and what activities went on here. It seems a lot of what they did included taxing the population, doling out punishments, and quelling uprisings(!) 

You need to take your shoes off to enter as the place uses tatami matting throughout, however there are bags available so you can carry your shoes with you. There’s also not a whole lot of English here, although you can access audio clips by scanning QR codes with your phone. I spent about an hour here in total.

Visit the shrines where the Takayama’s famous festivals are held!

Sakurayama Hachimangu shrine is less than a fifteen minute walk from the preserved shopping area and is surrounded by woodland. It’s a very peaceful place. 

 

As well as visiting the shrine, you can also pay a small amount to enter the Matsuri Yatai Kaikan museum. Here you can see some of the smaller floats from Takayama’s famous festivals and learn more about the history and significance of both the floats and the events. It’s worth a visit, especially if you’re not visiting Matsuri no Mori (more about that below) and there’s an audio guide available in various languages. The other museum next door contains miniature models of Nikko Toshugu shrine. If you’re wanting to visit the real Nikko Toshugu shrine through this is closer to Tokyo than it is to Takayama!

At the other end of Takayama, again about a 15-20 minute walk from the preserved streets in the other direction, is Hie shrine. Again, this shrine is surrounded by woodland. The deity of Hie shrine is Oyamakui, a monkey god, and you can see this reflected in the ema plaque as well as the shrine’s goshuin.

 

Bang some drums at Matsuri no Mori museum

Slightly out of Takayama is the Matsuri no Mori museum, which provides visitors with more information about the festivals. I had wondered whether it might be a rehash of some of the information from the museum at Sakurayama Hachimangu, but this was actually a rather fun, if unexpected experience!

To get to the Matsuri no Mori museum you need to take the Sarubobo bus from the city centre. It takes just under 20 minutes to get there and costs 100 yen each way. You have to use cash though – they don’t accept IC cards. (If you are interested in visiting the Hida Folk museum by the way, this is on the same route).

It costs 1000 Yen (~£7/ $8) to enter the Matsuri no Mori museum and you get given a mini-timetable upon entry. I was slightly confused as to what this was for but I just took the timetable and went in. 

Entering the museum was such an odd experience. As I went through the door I found myself in a long concrete tunnel that had a red carpet running down it, with display cases on either side. It was quite cold in there and it definitely felt like I was underground! At the entrance there was also a massive taiko drum that visitors can have a go at striking. I gave it a go and was not disappointed – the sound was loud and reverberated right the way down the tunnel! I actually got goosebumps.

As I went into the main hall at the end of the tunnel there were a number of floats, some taiko drums, and some mannequins in a lion dance costume. At least, I thought they were mannequins at first…

…and see some robots!

As I was starting to look around there was an announcement on the tannoy, and one of the floats lit up. Then, one of the little puppets at the top of the float began to move to music. It stopped in front of a peach and after some time, the peach popped open and a little baby came out, firing a cannon of omikuji (fortunes) into the air! Whilst I was aware of the folklore tale of Momotaro (the baby in the peach) this was unexpected to say the least. I later learned that this actually happens during the festival itself, with the figures being operated by puppeteers rather than machinery.

After the performance had ended, the room was still again. And then, after another ten minutes, another performance began. What I had thought were mannequins in the lion outfit were actually robots that performed a lion dance. And then finally, after another brief break, the old robots by the taiko drums sprang to life and began striking the drums. 

 

The sound was terrific and you could really feel the vibrations of these massive drums moving throughout the room! The venue and the age of the robots definitely helped amplify the slightly eerie atmosphere too. (Whilst I had been on my own initially, I was very glad to see that other people had joined me at that point!)

I could have stayed to watch more but was conscious of time. With that in mind, I headed back towards Takayama and back to my hotel onsen!