Takayama, Japan

There’s only so much time you can spend in big cities before they all start to look the same, so we headed to the atmospheric Hida Takayama in the central Honshū alpine region. Situated on the banks of a picturesque river, the historic district of Sanmachi Suji is lined with wooden merchants’ houses dating to the Edo Period. Unfortunatley we missed the infamous Takayama Festival (for which the town is famous) by just a few days, but the cherry blossom season was in full bloom so Jasmin was a happy camper.

The town is surrounded by numerous hillside shrines and temples, and some even turned on the snow for us when we visited… coming from Western Australia, we don’t get to see much of the white stuff.