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The Hida Folk Village

The Hida Folk Village is also known as Hida-no-Sato , is an attractive open-air museum assembled from real buildings that effectively recreates an entire traditional mountain village. Not only can you tour the village, but artisans continue to work in many buildings you can buy their crafts and even try your own hand at a number of activities. The architectural highlights are the traditional thatched-roof gasshō-zukuri houses, built with roofs like hands in prayer to withstand the heavy snowfalls in this region. More whimsically, there is a giant maneki-neko cat outside, standing over 4m tall. Entry is ¥700, or ¥900 for a combination ticket including bus transfers from and to JR Takayama station .

Sanmachi

Sanmachi is a very pretty section of Takayama's old city. Consisting of three narrow lanes packed with wooden buildings housing sake breweries and little boutiques, some of the larger merchant houses are now open as museums. The area, though it is definetely worth a visit, is quite touristy now and you will find many "Gaijin" along with Japanese tourists around browsing the lanes flanked by tourist-oriented shops. The area is a 10-minute walk to the east of the station.

Takayama Jinya

Takayama Jinya is a large, beautifully preserved government building from the time of the shogun and still used as local government building until 1969. Many rooms at the beginning of the visit are basically empty tatami rooms with the indication of what was done in the room or who would work or live there. The visit becomes increasingly interesting the further you proceed, since in the rice storage area there are interesting displays and information about the way the local government of Japan worked in the Edo era. The storage buildings alone, the biggest such original buildings still present in Japan, are worth the visit.

Takayama Yatai Kaikan

This is the hall where the festival floats are stored. Takayama hosts a famous yearly festival and the floats are quite ornate. The floats on display are rotated.

Kusakabe Mingei-kan

The Kusakabe house is a restored old merchant's home built in 1879. The home is filled with artifacts and crafts from that time period.

April - June

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