Japanese traditional street in Hida-Takayama

This time, I want to update more pictures taken in Hida-Takayama to continue last topic.

But, today's topic is difference from last time and it's the pictures of the streets lined with orderly rows of well-kept old stores and houses in Takayama city. Takayama city was the very famous town in masters and carpenters who built a lot of famous temples and palaces since ancient times. On the other hands, the town was a Joka-Machi, which is a kind of Japanese downtown and it defended the castle in the past, of Takayama castle of Kanamori family. After the family moved to Tohoku, this area was managed by Edo shogunate.
In additionally, the castle was said "The castle is in the best five castles in Japan" with the very beautiful structure that built by carpenters lived in the area. But, after Edo shogunate managed, they pulled it down and the ruins of the castle are only standing on the Shiroyama Park now. Because of the government had a such behavior as it hated castles that had few possibilities to make rebellions.

So Takayama city has such history as above wrote still keep the traditional rows of houses. And I took a lot of pictures on the streets, please enjoy some of them!




This is the street in the area where they keep the old style.
The style was bit changed but the atmosphere are still kept, right?








This is a liquor store in Hida-Takayama. Can you find the object that has round shape under the roof of the store?
It's a Sakabayashi and sometimes also called Sugidama. It's made to understand the mature degree of Japanese sake with the leaves of Japanese cedar when they start to brew. At that time, the color is fresh green and then it will change to be brown, so the color is the signal starting to sell their sake.
So their customers can understand by Sakabayashi when they can drink.







There are some coffee shops, restaurants and souvenir shops on the street!




And this is the notice, they really want to keep the atmospheres like this.




Can you see the pine tree on the picture? The branches are hung up to protected from snows. It's also Japanese culture in north area and called 'Yuki-Tsuri'. We could find such trees as on the pictures in Takayama city, even if this winter is very mild.




I took this picture under the pine tree hung up. There are a lot of waterways in the city, the waterways don't only have the function for drainage of snows, but also used to put out a fire.




This is a convenience store that is Family Mart in Takayama city, general family marts are colored in blue. But this is so special.　

We can find the fact the city keeps traditional styles in large area when we walk around Takayama city.
Finally, I put two pictures that are the library in Takayama city. The name is Kansho-Kan.






It looks the traditional style before 100 years ago when Japan started to receive Western civilization. The building was very modern at that time.


We can check the information about Hida Takayama!
Hida Takayama in Gifu