Experience the best of Inuyama

Inuyama's castle stands on a wooded hill above the Kiso River, on the border of Aichi and Gifu prefectures. Its small keep is one of only five castle keeps designated National Treasures, and it gives wide views over the river bends and the plain toward Nagoya. Below it, a district of old merchant streets has been restored, with wooden shopfronts selling sweets, skewers and pottery.

Cormorant fishing, ukai, takes place on the Kiso River on summer evenings, with fishermen working from wooden boats by firelight. The Urakuen garden holds the Jo-an tea house, also a National Treasure, and the open-air museum Meiji Mura gathers buildings from the Meiji era, including the entrance hall of Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel. In April the town's festival brings floats hung with lanterns through the streets.

Aichi's cooking is on the menu here: miso katsu, a pork cutlet in dark miso sauce, and hitsumabushi, grilled eel on rice, both from nearby Nagoya, along with skewered rice dumplings eaten while walking the old streets. The river valley is hot in summer, and cherry blossom and autumn colour make the castle hill at its best in April and November.