Takayama (Cont)

A bell and its temple near the old town.

After we left field magistrate's house, we headed to the preservation area and a samurai house. This was another area where I could have spent much more time.

As we entered the preservation district I saw an arborist going about his work using the modern
replacement for the od three-legged ladders and scaffolding.

Old Man Willow has grown around the guardrails.

Couldn't resist shooting this fancy manhole cover.

An old shrine in the District

A souvenir store in the old style.

The samurai house was crowded with tourists but we managed to work our way through.

The door used by the participants is in the right background. It is short and has a round top.
Participants must bow to enter because the doorway is so short.

A tokonoma in one of the rooms.

 For lunch today we went to a restaurant that specialized in Hida beef, a local variety of Wagyu.

The beef is cooked on a magnolia leaf to give it a little extra flavor.

Next stop on today's itinerary was the festival float museum. There were floats of many kinds and all had action dolls as part of their display.

This hallway ed into the huge cavern where the floats are kept.

This boat-shaped float is the first of the Heisei era floats.

This is the float described above.

These marionettes playing the drums are about life sized. The drums are BIG.

Back to our hotel we had a chance to enjoy the hot spring water and then had another Kaiseki dinner.