Takayama is a city in Japan’s mountainous Gifu Prefecture,

with narrow streets of its Sanmachi Suji historic district lined with wooden merchants’ houses dating to the Edo Period.

Takayama retains a traditional touch like few other Japanese cities, especially in its beautifully preserved old town.

It has become one of the prime candidates among travelers wishing to add a rural element into their itineraries.

Takayama gained importance as a source of high quality timber and highly skilled carpenters during the feudal ages.

The city was consequently put under direct control of the shogun and enjoyed quite a bit of prosperity considering its remote mountain location.

The city is now famed for its biannual Takayama Festival, going back to at least the mid-1600s, celebrating spring and fall with parades featuring ornate, gilded floats and puppet shows.

None of which we saw, visiting in the first week of September.

We did have our best meal of the entire trip though,

staying at a very traditional inn towards the outskirts of the city, in two rooms complete with tatami matting, comfortable futons on the floor and incredibly uncomfortably hard pillows.

There were shared toilets and sinks on our floor, and communal baths downstairs with an onsen for men and one for women.

My daughters assure me that the most traumatic event of the entire holiday was showering down in the public baths with a total stranger though I’m not sure whether getting naked in front of the stranger was more or less difficult than getting naked infant of their mum or sister.

Ho hum. Another example of where dad is held to an entirely lower standard.