Toyama Hidden Gems

Toyama is a bay with a wall behind it. The Tateyama range rises to 3,000 metres within about 25 kilometres of a seabed that drops to 1,000 metres deep, and that compression is the whole character of the place — rivers arrive fast and cold, and the deep-water trench offshore holds species that most Japanese ports never land. The Alpine Route across the mountains was built as a hydroelectric access road and now runs as a chain of cable cars, buses and a trolley through a tunnel; the snow corridor cut through the drifts at Murodo stands well above head height into May. Gokayama, on the Gifu border, keeps steep thatched gassho farmhouses that were built for silk and gunpowder production under snow loads, and unlike its better-known neighbour it still has quiet mornings. Toyama City itself was flattened in 1945 and rebuilt around trams, which now make the compact centre unusually easy to cross.