Taming Takayama

Thursday 23rd February

You might spend your holidays relaxing by the pool, reading a gripping novel or having lie-ins. While I do enjoy all of those things, I also have an incredible urge to do and see everything I possibly can in the limited time I have and so, at 7am I jumped out of bed and started getting ready. To be fair I didn’t really jump. I rolled and was half dead for a good hour but come 8.15am we were on our way to the subway, bound for Takayama. While the subway was crowded the Shikansen was comfortable and almost as relaxing as sitting by the pool reading a gripping novel. Almost.

I really enjoy seeing the country from a train window – you get a brief glimpse of all aspects of life from cities to small tows and the countryside in between. We saw homes, factories, skyscrapers and most impressively – mountains! The iconic layout of Takayama dates back to the 17th century and as one of Japans most atmospheric townscapes and the gateway to the Japanese alps and the Shirakawa-go UNESCO World Heritage Site, we knew we had to visit, even if it was only for one night! We arrived and made a beeline for our traditional guest house, Sumiyoshi Ryokan. Rated as TripAdvisor’s number one accommodation, this Meiji-era merchant’s house is home to the friendliest Japanese couple and within minutes had far surpassed our expectations. Our room, with traditional tatami mats, overlooked the river and came with traditional Japanese robes. We received welcome Macha Tea (which to be completely honest, was absolutely disgusting – Rory drank his and while I did try, mine went straight down the sink!) and once we’d freshened up we ventured out to explore the town.

We knew very little about Takayama, the guide books briefly touch on the place and they don’t offer a suggested itinerary and so we didn’t really know what to expect. We decided to follow the tourist sights and ended up stumbling across some truly magnificent temples. Dusted in snow, these temples, shrines and burial sites were dotted across the town and we spent the afternoon exploring what was fast becoming one of our favourite areas in Japan! What we really couldn’t understand was why there was nobody else around! Rory and I were the only ones walking this historic route and for the most part, we had each site completely to ourselves. We followed the route to a local park and we decided to keep exploring – it’s probably worth mentioning that Rory only had his casual boots on and they are about as far from ideal for hiking in snowy conditions as can be but he persevered, slipping and sliding as we climbed what was effectively a mountain (large hill probably but it sure felt like a mountain). At times the snow was up to our knees and as the sun began to set we thought it was probably time to head back but not before a giant hare jumped out of the undergrowth and dashed through the snow. As we made our way back to town we were almost speechless. What was meant to be a quick walk around town had turned in to a snow filled adventure, from exploring culturally significant sites to getting lost in snow covered forests, this afternoon was completely unexpected and has been a real highlight of our trip.

All the walking had left us feeling pretty peckish so we headed off in search of the local speciality – Hida beef. We found a local restaurant and ordered two steaks (fillet for me and rump for Rory, obviously) which came with all the trimmings – salad, soup, appetisers, breads and the most tender steak I’ve ever had! I It was cooked to perfection and of such a high quality that I didn’t even notice a difference between the two cuts! Thoroughly satisfied we headed back to our Ryokan where our host had set up our beds, changed in to our traditional robes and headed to the private Onsen where we soaked in steaming hot water. After a busy few days this was the perfect end to the day and we got in to our beds feeling toasty warm and incredibly lucky to have experienced another exceptional day!