Ireland day 1329. Monday 19 May 2025- Takayama 2

Today’s summary	After breakfast, we walked over to the Miyagawa morning market and then on to the Takayama Matsuri Yatai Kaikan museum of festival floats. Had a look at the display and nearby temple then got a coffee and apple pie in a local café. From there, walked right across town to the Hikaru Musreum. A jaw-dropping place – absolutely massive and based on a Mayan temple. It contains works by Pissaro, Monet and Van Gogh yet hardly anyone was there. Tea and cake in the café afterwards then walked back for onsen and bento dinner with sake in our room
Today’s weather	Dry with occasional sun. Moderate to strong southerly wind. Appx 25c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Takayama floats and architecture

Commentary

I suppose if there had to be a word to summarise today, it would be “enigma”.

But the day started normally enough – the enigma only came later. We both slept very well last night – probably for the best part of ten hours. So we had a lie-in to 7am then just had time for a quick dip in the onsen before our 8am breakfast.

Once we were washed and fed, we packed a small bag and headed off for a day of exploring. Our first destination was the Miyagawa morning market, which is held on the east bank of the river every day from 8am to noon. It sells a variety of goods – quite a lot of ready-to-eat food, but also herbs and spices and some fruit and vegetables.

We had a quick look as we passed through, then continued our progress to the Takayama Matsuri Yatai Kaikan museum of festival floats. Takayama hosts two festivals every year – one in the Spring and one in the Autumn. They are said to be some of the best in Japan, and at each one, elaborate floats are wheeled out and paraded round the streets. There are twenty three floats in all, and a selection of four of them are always on display at the museum. We had a good look round – they are certainly spectacular and elaborate – and we learned that the festival has to go on on fixed dates, come rain or shine, and that in the event of poor weather, substitute floats do the rounds instead of the “real thing”. They are less elaborate and, presumably, more dispensable. Afterwards, we walked a short way up the hill, and inspected a nearby temple, one of many such buildings in Takayama.

By this stage, it was after noon so we found a local café where we had a rather nice cup of coffee and home-made apple pie in very cosy surroundings. After our impromptu lunch, we set out on a 40-minute walk across town to get to the Hikaru art museum. This is where the enigma began. It’s an ultra-modern massive edifice of beautiful French limestone, created to look rather like a Mayan temple. It appears to be run by a religious organisation and on the top floor there is a large display dedicated to its founder. Quite why the museum was constructed here, in this small town tucked away in the Japanese mountains, isn’t clear.

Anyway, whatever the origins, its an absolutely stunning piece of architecture and must have cost hundreds of millions. Today, it houses works by Monet, Pissaro and Van Gogh, along with numerous others including Japanese artist Ukiyoe Hokusai, who painted the famous picture of the wave with Mt Fuji in the background. The enigma is however compounded by the fact that hardly anybody was there. The building could easily have accommodated a thousand visitors without seeming overcrowded, yet when we visited I guessed there were fewer than a dozen.

After looking round the galleries, we paused in the café for a cup of tea and some cake (very nice) before walking back to our ryokan.

The evening was passed in the same way as the previous couple – a dip in the onsen, followed by a bento box and sushi in our room afterwards. Though today we replaced the beers with a couple of glasses of pre-packaged sake from a local mini-mart, which made an enjoyable change.

Tomorrow we move on, leaving the rest of this evening to reflect on the last three days in Takayama. It’s been full of surprises from start to finish – certainly not at all what I had expected, and especially not the spectacularly way-out museums yesterday and today. So I’m trying to keep an open mind about the next stages in our trip – there’s no point in having preconceived notions, I have realised, because no matter what they are, in this land of continuous surprise, they are they are sure to be wrong.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


At the morning market, alongside the Miyagawa river	On a quick tour of the Takayama Matsuri Yatai Kaikan museum of festival floats – there are 23 floats, 12 are wheeled out for the Spring festival, and 11 in the Autumn

Coffee and home-made apple pie in the Tabino Shiore Café. It was absolutely charming	Lots of swallows seem to have made their homes in Takayama, and have built elaborate nests in the eaves of the houses

The entry tunnel to the Hikaru museum. It’s all in a similar vein to this – modern, gigantic and enigmatic	There’s even a huge Mayan pyramid perched on the top, all built out of magnificent French limestone

The Great Wave off Kanagawa – one of the series “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” by Ukiyoe Hokusai, and which was on display at the Hikaru museum in a special exhibition lasting until the Autumn. It must surely be one of the most recognised images in the world