Takayama- 9th March

Another day another place to explore.
While my afternoon walk yesterday had taken me to some interesting places I still hadn't reached the area of the town that Takayama is most famous for; the original wooden buildings of the shopping district.
While it is now fairly tourist-friendly (read: commercialized) it wasn't nearly as tacky as I expected. I assume there must be some strict rules for the businesses which operate out of these wonderful old buildings, as there are no signs in English and the items for sale are mostly very traditional, small scale items, rather than the mass-produced plastic souveniers you can buy closer to the river.

I didn't really take many pictures, I was too busy being fascinated by the different stores, but this gives you a good idea of the 'feeling' of the district:

--- Looking a bit gloomy, as it was about to snow ---

Takayama is situated in a valley and the town is spread either side of the river, the old town on one side (where I was staying) and the 'new' town on the other (where the train station is). The result of this is that the river has become a central point for me, helping me orient myself, it is also very pretty. After eating lunch I decided to walk up one side of the valley to find the ruins of a castle that were marked on my map. The view from the top of the ridge was wonderful. It was at this time it began to snow quite heavily!

--- The walls of the castle ruins ---

--- The graveyard which now occupies the castle grounds ---

This picture give you a good view of Takayama, the straight line across the centre is the river and the grassy area on either side of it. The huge clump of tress you can see on the opposite side of the river is at the Shrine I visited yesterday (I did say you could see them for miles) and it gives you some indication of just how HUGE those tress were. To the left of the trees you can see more modern multi-storey buildings, these are in the area surrounding the train station.

My next port of call was a museum which houses the ceremonial 'floats' which Takayama is very famous for, there were a few on display (I was informed that different ones are displayed at different times) and they were very impressive.