Takayama, Japan: The Hida Old Town, Its Morning Markets, and How to Fit It Into a Trip

Why Takayama Is on So Many Itineraries

Three reasons, and they compound. First, the old town is genuinely intact: the Sanmachi Suji streets kept their Edo-period merchant houses, sake breweries and latticed fronts through the twentieth century, so you walk it rather than look at it across a rope. Second, the town is small enough that everything below is on foot from the station in ten to twenty minutes, which makes a two-night stop efficient rather than rushed. Third, geography: Takayama sits between Tokyo and Kyoto on the mountain route, so a stop here costs a trip almost nothing in extra travel, and it puts Shirakawa-go within a morning's reach.

The honest downside is the same as the upside. Because it is on so many itineraries, the old town is busy between about ten and three. The fix is the one the town itself offers: the markets open at seven, and the streets are yours before the day-trip buses arrive.

What to See in Takayama, With Prices and Hours

The morning markets: start here, and start early

Takayama has two, and they are different. The Miyagawa Morning Market runs along about 350 metres of the Miyagawa riverbank between the Kajibashi and Yayoibashi bridges, with around sixty stalls: vegetables and pickles, local crafts, the town's sweets. From April to November it opens at 7:00 and packs up at noon; from December to March it starts at 8:00. The Jinya-mae Morning Market in front of the Jinya is the older and stricter one — it has run for more than 300 years and only farmers are allowed to set up a stall, so what you see is what was grown around the town.

Sanmachi Suji: the streets themselves

Three parallel lanes — Ichinomachi, Ninomachi and Sannomachi — make up the preserved quarter, and the point is the whole ensemble rather than any one building: low eaves, dark-stained timber, water running in stone channels along the street, and the cedar balls hanging over the doors of the sake breweries, which turn from green to brown as the year's brew ages. Tasting is the natural way to spend the middle of the day here — most breweries pour a sake cup or two for a few hundred yen, and the same streets sell the region's soy sauce, miso and pickled mountain vegetables. Hida beef, grilled on skewers or as sushi at the counter windows, is the street food the town is known for; a sit-down Hida beef dinner is the splurge.

Takayama Jinya

The Jinya was the Hida region's provincial government office under the Tokugawa shogunate, and it is the only one of its kind still standing. Admission is ¥500, free for anyone 18 and under; it opens at 8:45 and closes at 17:00 from April to October and 16:30 from November to March, with the ticket window shutting 30 minutes before. It is closed from 29 December to 3 January. Allow an hour; the tatami offices and the rice storehouse are the interest, and a free English guided tour is available on request.

Hida Folk Village

Hida no Sato is an open-air museum on the hill west of town: more than thirty farmhouses relocated from across the region, including the steep thatched roofs you will see for real in Shirakawa-go the next day. Admission is ¥700 for adults and ¥200 for children, open 8:30–17:00 all year. The Sarubobo bus from the Nohi bus centre beside the station takes ten minutes and costs ¥210. If your route includes Shirakawa-go, this is optional; if it does not, it is the best substitute.

Beyond the three streets: the temple slope, the castle hill and the floats

East of the old town the ground rises into the Higashiyama temple area, where one Buddhist temple after another sits along the hillside with shrines between them, joined by the city into the Higashiyama Walking Course — about 5.5 km and two hours if you complete all of it, from the Higashiyama temples round to Shiroyama Park, the wooded hill where Takayama Castle stood until the castle was pulled down in the 1690s. It is the quiet half of the town, and the place to wander when the streets below fill up after ten and Sanmachi turns touristy; the tourists thin out again after four.

Back in the north of the old town, beside Sakurayama Hachimangu Shrine, the Takayama Festival Floats Exhibition Hall (Takayama Yatai Kaikan) shows four of the autumn festival's eleven yatai at a time, rotating them three times a year in March, July and November. Admission is ¥900 for adults, ¥550 for senior high school students and ¥450 for junior high school students; it opens daily 9:00–17:00 from March to November and 9:00–16:30 from December to February. If your dates miss the festival, this is where you see what the fuss is about.

The Takayama Festival: Two Dates a Year

The Takayama Festival is two festivals. The Spring Takayama Festival (Sanno Matsuri), the annual festival of Hie Shrine, is held on 14 and 15 April. The Autumn Takayama Festival (Hachiman Matsuri), for Sakurayama Hachimangu Shrine, is on 9 and 10 October. The dates are fixed, not moved to weekends, and the ornate yatai floats — lacquer, carving, marionettes worked by strings from inside — are paraded through the old town on both.

The practical point is the beds. Takayama is a small town and the festival nights sell out about a year ahead, at festival prices. If you want to be here on those dates, book the hotel before anything else in the trip; if you cannot, the week either side has the same town without the floats and without the premium. Our Takayama Autumn Festival guide covers the October event in detail.

The Shirakawa-go Day

Most visitors come to Takayama at least partly for what is fifty minutes away. Shirakawa-go (also written Shirakawa go or Shirakawago), the UNESCO-listed village of steep-roofed gassho-zukuri farmhouses, is served from the Nohi bus centre beside Takayama Station by buses that take about 50 minutes and continue on to Kanazawa, Toyama and Takaoka — which is why Takayama–Shirakawa-go–Kanazawa is one of the classic self-guided sequences.

On our Takayama routes the Shirakawa-go day is done by chartered taxi rather than the public bus: it is listed in what is included on GR002, GR003, GR009, the Koyasan routes and their deluxe versions. The difference is the timetable — you leave when you have finished breakfast and come back when you have seen enough, rather than around the bus. On the 7-day Historic Towns route (BF003) the Shirakawa-go taxi is optional and not in the price: the Nohi bus from the bus station beside Takayama Station is the way there (about 50 minutes, ¥2,800 one way; reserve a seat ahead in busy seasons) and is an extra cost paid locally — or ask us to add the taxi day when you book. Everything about the village itself, from the viewpoint to the winter light-ups and how the lottery for them works, is in our Shirakawa-go guide.

Day Trips From Takayama

Shirakawa-go is the day trip everyone takes, and the previous section is about it. Two other nearby attractions in the Hida area are worth knowing if you have a third day or want a quieter one.

• Hida Furukawa — 20 minutes north by JR train, a small canal town in the countryside north of Takayama, white-walled storehouses and carp-filled channels, that feels like Takayama did before the buses — the hidden gem of the Takayama area. Its own festival, the Furukawa Matsuri, is in April.
• Hirayu Onsen and the Okuhida hot spring villages — about 55 minutes east by Nohi bus, in the mountains toward Kamikochi and the Shinhotaka Ropeway. An open-air bath with the Alps in view is the point. The buses continue to Kamikochi in season and to Matsumoto, and in the warm months shuttle buses climb the Norikura Skyline from Hirayu to about 2,700 m on Mount Norikura (the road is closed in winter). Our Alpine route (NT004) approaches Takayama from this side.

Getting to Takayama

Takayama has no Shinkansen station; the mountains are the point. From Tokyo, the standard route — and the one our routes use — is the Tokaido Shinkansen to Nagoya, about 100 minutes on a Nozomi, then the Limited Express Hida up the Hida river valley, roughly two and a half hours with hourly departures. Change at Nagoya, and sit on the right-hand side going north for the river. The whole journey is around four hours, and the second half is one of the better train rides in the country.

From Kyoto or Osaka the same Hida train applies from Nagoya. From Kanazawa, the highway bus through Shirakawa-go is the direct way, and it is how our Kanazawa & Hida route (GR003) is sequenced: Kanazawa first, Kyoto, then Takayama and Shirakawa-go on the way back toward Tokyo. Leaving Takayama, our routes send the large luggage ahead to the next hotel by courier — the Hida is a comfortable train but not a luggage-friendly one.

If you are travelling on a rail pass rather than one of our routes, Nagoya–Takayama is covered by the Japan Rail Pass; the buses to Shirakawa-go are not. Our guide to whether the JR Pass is worth it works through the mountain route as one of its examples.

When to Go

• April: the spring festival on the 14th and 15th, and cherry blossom along the Miyagawa about the same time. The busiest week of the year and the most expensive.
• May to September: green and cooler than the cities; the mountain basin takes the edge off summer, and the markets are at their fullest. Our Alpine route (NT004, departures June to October) uses this window.
• October and early November: the autumn festival on the 9th and 10th, then the colour, which reaches the town itself in late October and early November — see Japan in October and November.
• December to March: snow. The old town under snow is the postcard, the market moves to an 8:00 start, and Shirakawa-go's light-ups are in January. Our ski-and-cities route (SK010) comes here from Shiga Kogen for exactly this.

Where Our Routes Stay in Takayama

Every route below spends two nights here, and the catalogue names the accommodations for each. All three are located within a walk of the station and the old town, with comfortable rooms of the Western hotel kind — the Tokyu Stay has a hot-spring bath on site; where the catalogue says "or similar", an equivalent property may be substituted for your dates.

Self-Guided Routes With Takayama Nights

Thirty of our routes stop in Takayama. These seven cover the range — a week on a budget, the classic twelve days, a family version, a winter one and the alpine summer route. Prices are per person from the current price list and move with the departure date; every one includes the hotels, the Shinkansen and limited express legs, luggage forwarding between cities, a transport IC card, travel insurance and 24/7 support while you are in Japan.

Entrance fees to the Jinya, the Folk Village and the sights in Shirakawa-go are not included on any route; they come to a few thousand yen for a two-day stay and are paid on the spot. If you are building your own itinerary instead, the 10-day Japan itinerary shows where a Takayama stop fits between Tokyo and Kyoto.

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