On the Road to Takayama

My three musketeers by my side, we had set off to Takayama with the goal of arriving on time for the Sanno Festival, renown throughout Japan - a three-day trip I've only just now gotten back from. The road to Takayama itself, though, was worthy of notice, as we drove through the countryside and up and around mountains to get to our destination. We managed to make quite a number of stops along the way, too, and here are some of them. No doubt each of these would've been worthy of a smaller trip just for themselves.

 Matsumoto
 Our first stop, a little more than halfway to Takayama already, was Matsumoto. Although the small town bares little in terms of bustling city life, it does have the Matsumoto Castle - one of the few in Japan to have remained in such an intact state. Over 400 years old, the castle has resisted the wear and tear of time and still remains as majestic as ever. It has a moat, with koi fish, and, holy shit, say it with me, swans. There are god damn swans in the moat. Wow.

Kiso Valley
 Knowing full well that our chances of finding a place to stay within Takayama would be fairly slim, we decided to spend the night in the Kiso valley, tucked in between the area's numerous mountains. Thanks to Ken, we managed to find a cheap bed that also provided us a hot bath and breakfast on top of that. 
 The Kiso valley, though, is also home to a number of very old post-towns, the likes of which are often seen in samurai movies. The most notable post-town in the valley is that of Tsumago, which we paid a quick visit to, and found rather silent and empty, despite it barely being 7:00 in the evening yet. Still, Tsumago had a very particular and dated feel to it, and left me wondering what its few streets would have been like during the day.

The Japan Alps
Although the mountain paths we took along our drive did not take us very high up the mountains, we did get to enjoy a lot of the mountain scenery, complete with pristine rivers and lakes. Not too far in the distance were white cap mountains, and so too were there too many ski resorts to count, still white with snow but not operating at this time of the year. Takayama city itself lies nested within these alps.