Inuyama Matsuri

The Inuyama festival in Inuyama’s castle town is held on the first weekend of April ever since it started in 1634. There is a total of 13 nicely decorated floats being paraded through the streets. Some of the floats feature mechanical dolls (karakuri ningyou) that perform dances – this can be seen during the early afternoon hours. At night the floats will be decorated with lanterns (each of the float carries exactly 365 lanterns) and paraded through the streets again.

Inuyama town has a niece castle and old town that makes for a nice backdrop for this festival . The festival also very often falls in the same week that cherry blossom trees start to bloom (late March/early April). So if the weather is nice then that makes for an excellent combination of 4 good reasons (festival/weather/cherry/location) to actually go out and enjoy this festival. Unfortunately i only had my light jacket on (Daytime temperatures are already getting hot – but evenings can still be freezing) so i had to give up early and return home. The festival however was really nice and i am planning on going back again next year.

Transport: Inuyama is located about half an hour north of Nagoya. Meitetsu Railways, also known in English as Nagoya Railways, provides the easiest access.

Website: The Inuyama City website has an excellent page with info about this festival here (all in Japanese).