Thatched cottages and Autumn colours

After a brief trip to an English cottage via the blogosphere we're back in Japan to look at thatched cottages Nihon style. For the final part of our trip to Northern Japan we visited Takayama, a lovely town tucked away in the mountains. Traditionally, houses in this area were built with thatched roofs made to withstand the heavy snowfalls in the winter. Unfortunately, many of these wonderful houses were destroyed in the 1960's to make way for a dam, however a small number were taken apart and rebuilt at the Hida Folk Village (a bit like the Ulster American Folk Park!) just outside Takayama. There you'll be able have a peak inside 19 of these houses that are beautifully maintained and give you a glimpse of the way life was in rural Japan up until the mid 20th century. I particularly enjoyed looking at the marvellous array of sleighs they used to nip around in, they looked great craic. We visited the valley in the early morning to avoid the onslaught of Japanese tour guides, who always seem to wield large megaphones and umbrellas to keep their groups in tow. Visiting at this time was a wise idea as a lovely soft mist enveloped the area and showed the Autumn leaves in all their splendour. I'll leave the pictures to do the rest of the talking.



The red, golds and yellows of the trees were really breathtaking and everything seemed so calm, bright and peaceful.



Finally, a rare picture of us to prove that Martin and I really do live in Japan and that we really do visit all these places.