Takayama is another small historic town in the Japanese Alps. These smaller cities feel slower, until you get into the peak tourist areas. We’re always surprised how crowded those streets are. How does everyone magically appear in one place without any signs of tourists throughout the rest of the city!?
The tourist areas had a bunch of sake breweries, where we stopped for a tasting (honestly, all decent sake tastes the same to us). You can identify the breweries by the ball of cedar fronds hung outside. They are hung when they bottle a new sake batch, so you can judge how old their current brew is by the color of the cedar ball. Sake isn’t meant to age, unlike wine, so fresh is supposedly better.
There’s another Hida (this area of the Japanese alps) historic village in Takayama. It was a bit of a walk outside of town, but totally worth the trek. We love all the historic houses with thatched roofs and this village had a lot of informational displays in each of the houses about sericulture , the unique sashiko stitching in clothing and other aspects of daily life.
Woman working silk on a loom:
One of the oldest Ginko trees we’ve ever heard of is growing in this Buddhist temple courtyard. The sign said it’s about 1200 years old! Needless to say, Priscilla geeked out a bit.
We also had our favorite Japanese curry while in Takayama (twice…). Just the right amount of everything!
From Takayama, we took the bus to Hirayu Onsen to stay at a ryokan while taking the bus to nearby Kamikochi for hiking. We managed to catch a bit more autumn colors while hiking!
Monkeys roaming around Kamikochi! We were starting to think we wouldn’t see any, but got lucky and saw dozens!
While staying at the ryokan we enjoyed their onsen baths. Hirayu Onsen is a small little town that is full of hot spring fed baths. This hot (sulfur smelling water) is everywhere in the the town, pouring out of fountains in front of shops and ryokans and hot enough to boil this store’s eggs apparently!
I had a little trepidation about onsen bathing (they’re public baths and have some specific traditions you’re supposed to follow). However, it felt wonderful after hiking all day and wasn’t nearly as awkward as I’d feared. We also enjoyed wearing the yukata robes provided, people wear them around the hotel all evening. 
We also really enjoyed the gourmet Kaiseki meals served at the ryokan! It was largely cooked at the table and had about a dozen courses featuring local specialties and ingredients (like Hida beef, river fish, local miso, tofu, and mushrooms). Even breakfast was extravagant (with fish, raw egg whisked in rice and more grilled miso). We were really treating ourselves in Kamikochi. We actually found this was the perfect place to splurge, because there aren’t many budget options anyways.
Highlights of Takayama and Kamikochi:
- Kaiseki meals and onsen baths in Hirayu Onsen
- Seeing monkeys around Kamikochi!
- Sake breweries and sake tasting in Takayama
That meal looks awesome!