Takayama Matsuri

This festival in Takayama started back somewhere in the 16th century and is now among the 3 most famous ones in all over Japan. There are two parts to this festival, one on the 14th/15th of April and the other one on the 9th/10th of October. The spring festival is held in the Sanno shrine to pray for a good harvest and the autumn festival is to thank for the harvest in the Hachiman shrine.

The festivals are famous for the large ornate floats that parade through the old part of the town (on the first day of the festivals). There are 25 festival floats in Takayama, 12 for Spring, 11 for Autumn, and 2 for others. Some of them feature Karakuri (mechanical) puppets operated by strings and push rods from within.

The parade is the highlight of this festival and the one i went to see. The procession of those floats doesn’t happen if there is rain and this year we were lucky because in the days before there was typhoon Melor bringing plenty of rain and stormy weather to Japan. On my car trip from Osaka to Takayama (a 5 hours car drive) i was driving under what must have been one of the last rain cloud of that bad weather front, but in the late afternoon the sky cleared up and the festival went ahead.

The streets were crowded with people but i was told less so than on perfect matsuri days (if the parade falls on a weekend and if the weather is nice and sunny). I also had some troubles with a couple of professional tv-crews recording footage of the festival for the news. The powerful floodlights they use ruined quite a few of my pictures (light-reflections and bad contrast). I think i better keep an eye on those guys next time – better to have them in my back instead of the front.

Overall this matsuri was certainly one of the nicer ones and very enjoyable, but the narrow overcrowded dark streets of the old town make moving around to good photo locations a bit of a challenge.

Transport: The festival places are about 15 minute on foot from Takayama station. Head north east for autumn festival and south east for the spring one. You can’t really miss them, just follow the other people. and the long chains of food stalls. Booking of hotel rooms is usually best done as early as possible due to the popularity of this event.

Website: The town website as well as the shrine website have information available in Japanese as well as in English.