Takayama Spring Festival (Sanno Matsuri)

The Sanno Matsuri is the spring half of the Takayama Festival, held by Hie Shrine on 14 and 15 April every year regardless of the weekday. Its stars are the yatai, tall festival floats built by the town's Edo-period craftsmen and layered with lacquer, gilt metalwork and carved dragons. A dozen or so are pulled out of their storehouses and stood along the streets south of the Miyagawa river, around the old Takayama Jinya and Honmachi, where you can walk right up to them.

The programme is uneven across the two days, and the 14th is the one to build a trip around. It has the karakuri performances, in which mechanical puppets on top of certain floats dance and transform, and it has the Yomatsuri, the night procession in which the floats are hung with paper lanterns and pulled slowly through the darkened town to the sound of flutes and drums. The 15th repeats the daytime displays and the shrine's own processions but has no night parade.

Takayama has limited accommodation and the festival fills it months in advance, so book early or stay in Nagoya or Kanazawa and come in for the day by train and bus. The old town is compact and everything is within walking distance of the station. Spring in the Hida mountains can still be cold after dark, and rain cancels the outdoor displays, in which case the floats stay in their storehouses with the doors open for viewing.