Naramachi

ならまち

Lattice-front townhouses and red monkey charms

Hours

Streets always open; shops roughly 10am–5pm, varying

Tickets

Free to wander; Gango-ji and other sites charge separately

Address

Around Chuin-cho and Gangoji-cho, Nara

Walk a few blocks south of Sarusawa Pond and the streets narrow, with wooden-latticed townhouses standing eave to eave. This is what's left of an Edo-to-Meiji merchant quarter, and under the eaves hang strings of red cloth monkeys, migawari-zaru, said to take bad luck in your place. Cafés, craft shops and a sake brewery hide in converted houses on every lane, so getting lost without a map is the point. In the middle sits Gango-ji, a World Heritage temple whose roof still carries some of Japan's oldest tiles.