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à Takayama

Takayama's old town is three streets of Edo-period merchant houses, dark timber and white plaster, with sake breweries marking their entrances with cedar balls. It is small enough to walk in an hour and quiet before nine, which is when it photographs best. The morning markets run along the river, and the hillside temple walk above the town gives height. Most sessions here pair Takayama with Shirakawa-go, fifty minutes by bus — a valley of steep thatched farmhouses that is at its most striking under deep snow in January and February, when the village is lit on a handful of winter evenings. The area is four and a half hours from Tokyo, so it belongs to trips that have a spare night rather than day trips.