Our Takayama Travel Guide, Hida Beef and Historic Districts
Located near the Japanese Alps in Gifu Prefecture is the city of Takayama. Takayama is known for its preserved historical districts consisting of Edo-style streets. Takayama is also famous for its food, most notably the “Hida-gyu” or Hida beef. Outside of walking the historical Edo-style streets and eating Hida Beef, visitors can pay a visit to the Takayama Yatai Kaikan, browse the morning markets, or walk the Temple Trail. We spent two solid days exploring the city of Takayama. Outlined in this post is our Takayama Travel Guide.
Takayama is in the Japanese Prefecture of Gifu in central Japan. Takayama is considered the major hub in the area, so there is a train station here which services the JR Takayama Line.
The best way to travel to Takayama by train is to take the limited express train from Nagoya to Takayama. The train ride from Nagoya takes about 4 hours and costs just under ¥15000.
Jill and I did a road trip around central Chubu and Takayama was our main destination. If renting a car like we did, Takayama is very accessible using either the express way or scenic nature roads. We opted for the scenic roads and glad we did. The mountains en route to Takayama were breathtaking!
Things to do and see in Takayama
Takayama is not a huge city and can easily be explored on foot. Most attractions, restaurants, and shops are located around the Sanmachi (Section of the historical district). Although not a big city, I recommend at least two days in Takayama. Two days offers plenty of time to visit museums, walk the historical districts, sample local sake, and eat some of the best beef in Japan. We spent two days in this magnificent city and want to share our recommended Takayama Travel Guide.
Must See and Do Attractions
Sanmachi Historical Houses
If you see photos of Takayama, chances are that the photos are from the Sanmachi area. Sanmachi is located in Takayama’s old city and is made up of three long and narrow roads lined with old wooden buildings. The beautiful architecture of the buildings on Sanmachi are unique to the area. The dark colors of wood used on the buildings makes the Sanmachi area so distinct. Many of these buildings date back to the Edo Period (1600-1868). During this period most buildings where used as merchant shops.
Many of the buildings on Sanmachi have been turned into sake breweries, restaurants, boutique shops, and even museums. I highly recommend visiting the inside of at least one of these buildings. Within the Sanmachi area and especially outside this district many of the houses are residential. People still live in many of these houses. Keep that in mind and always be respectful.
Try Sake at One or Many of the Sake Breweries
I’m no sake connoisseur, but I do like a good drink and have been getting into sake since living in Japan. For this trip, I wanted to try sake in various cities and found Takayama to be a great sake destination. The Sanmachi District had several sake breweries.
You can always tell a place is a sake brewer because there is usually a Sugidama or Cedar Ball hanging by the entrance. Basically the Sugidama is hung up in winter while the cedar twigs are still green. This tells customers that the new sake has been pressed. Once the cedar ball turns brown the sake is aged and ready to be enjoyed!
We popped into a few sake breweries in the Sanmachi District and one that stood out to us was Harada Sake Brewery. We paid around ¥300 for a tasting, which included a tasting glass. There was a cooler off to the right with around 20-25 different sake’s to try from the brewery. We were free to try each and every one and of course we took advantage of that fabulous opportunity. After 20 or so samples of sake, we were feeling pretty good and Takayama was a little blurry afterwards!
Check out the Festival Floats at Takayama Yatai Kaikan
The Takayama Festival is considered one of the best festivals in Japan. It is celebrated twice a year. There is a Spring Festival and an Autumn Festival. The main attraction of the festival are the floats or “Yatai” in Japanese. Many of the floats still used today date back to the 17th century. The floats are massive and highly decorated.
In total there are 12 floats that take part in the festival. A few of these floats are on display at the Takayama Festival Float Exhibition Hall. The museum is open to visitors and the entrance fee is ¥800. I found the entrance price to be steep for what it was. We spent about 20 minutes in the museum and left kind of disappointed but it was still really cool to see the floats in person. I would recommend this museum unless you are an extreme budget traveler.
Walk the Takayama Temple Trail
After a visit to the Float Exhibition Hall, Jill and I randomly stumbled upon the Takayama Temple Trail. The trail is well signed in places and not so much in other places. We found a sign pointing us in the right direction. We then found ourselves at an intersection with no signs so we kind of walked around until we found the trail again.
Once we found the actual trail it was well maintained and easy to follow. The trail crosses paths with about 10 temples give or take. Most the temples were fairly small. Impressive, yes but nothing compared to other temples around Japan. Either way it was a nice and easy walk through town.
Browse the Morning Markets
One of our favorite things to do in a new city is to explore the local markets. Takayama has two daily markets, the Miyagawa Market and the Jinya-mae Market. Both markets are open from 7:00 am (8:00 am during winter months) until noon.
The morning markets consisted of local vendors selling a good mix of crafts, souvenirs, local food products, and snacks. Some vendors had free samples. Some of the more interesting items we tried were the wasabi Nori (dried seaweed) and mushroom tea. Although these were a little overwhelming to the taste buds, not to bad! But seconds weren’t necessary!
Don't Miss the Old Gingko Tree at the Hida Kokubunji Temple
Hida Kokubunji Temple, we came for the Pagoda but stayed for the Gingko tree! This temple complex is a short walk from the Takayama Train Station and has a lovely temple, pagoda, and very impressive Ginkgo tree. The Great Ginkgo tree of Hida Kokubunji was enormous, estimated to be 1,200 years old! The tree is 28 m in height and has a circumference of 10 m.
Hida Beef Literally Melts in your Mouth
Hida-gyu or Hida Beef is a type of Wagyu beef raised in Gifu Prefecture and can be found everywhere in the Takayama area. Hida Beef is known for its marbling and taste that literally melts in your mouth. A bit cliché, but it’s true. I’ve never had meat quite like Hida beef. The only other meat I’ve had before that can compare is the Crown Rib from Jack Stack in Kansas City
Recommended Restaurants, Food Vendors and Snacks around Takayama
Restaurants and Food Vendors
Kyoya
Most of these restaurants were recommended to us by friends and they were all incredible, Kyoya was no exception and might be one of our favorite dining experiences in Japan so far.
Kyoya was a Yakiniku style restaurant in an old fashioned Japanese house. There most popular items include Hida Beef, of course as well as houba miso, which is grilled on a leaf. Also recommended were their wasabi shoots. There was an English menu available. We ordered one set to grill which came with slices of beef, vegetables, rice, and miso soup. The food was absolutely fantastic!
こもり(Komori)
Komori was a little food stand in the middle of Takayama right before crossing the Kaji Bridge at the intersection of Honmachi Dori and Yasukawa Dori. As far as I am aware, this vendor just sold Hida Beef on a stick for ¥550. There were about 4-5 chunks of beef on the stick.
This was our first encounter with Hida Beef and I was instantly addicted. After my first bite, I was speechless by how good the meat was. We might have came back here a couple more times during our stay in Takayama.
Coffee Don
Another great recommendation we received from friends was to have coffee and sweets at Coffee Don. Coffee Don is located on Honmachi Dori, not far from Komori.
Coffee Don had a nice selection of both hot and cold drinks. They also offer sweet treats like cake and pie. With its old timey atmosphere and friendly service, we really enjoyed our time at Coffee Don.
Getting tired of reading about Hida beef yet? Hida beef was just so good, we had to try various meals and cooking styles of it. Another popular street food in Takayama was the Hida beef sashimi. Sashimi is basically a thin cut of raw meat, it doesn’t have to be just fish!
The Hida beef sashimi was sold at various vendors throughout town. We ordered a few to try and like all the other beef we had around town, it was amazing. The flavor was phenomenal.
Lodging and Where to Stay
In Takayama, visitors can find all sorts of lodging from high end onsen resorts to youth hostels and everything in between. There are lodging options all throughout Takayama and the surrounding area. There are several hotel options conveniently located near Takayama station.
Takayama Ouan
We stayed two nights at Takayama Ouan. This is one of those in between hotels where it felt like a resort but price wise it was cheap, at least to United States standards. The hotel had an onsen (private onsen options as well), late night complimentary ramen, all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, and all the amenities anyone could ever ask for.
Below are photos of our daily breakfasts. The quality of the food was higher then other hotels we’ve stayed at. I’ve said this before, only in Japan can you get a breakfast that consists of rice, soup, hot dogs, karaage, pasta, fermented vegetables, toast, fish, and the list goes on.
Sarubobo
I can’t write about a Takayama Travel Guide without mentioning Sarubobo. Sarubobo means “Monkey Baby,” and it is the mascot of the Hida region. These dolls are faceless and generally colored red, although we saw them in various other colors. Sarubobo is a good luck charm primarily for a good and happy marriage and easy going birth delivery.
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