On this beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon, I went up to the top of Kitayama and walked around before meeting a client for coffee. Kitayama is one of the most prominent mountains (or hill) in town offering a full view of Takayama and the eastern neighborhood of Sanfukuji.
On the north end of Kitayama is Kitayama Park, which is also the site of where Ayuzaki castle once stood. Kanemori famously stationed himself in this castle during his invasion of Hida. He used this castle as a vantage point to plan his attack on Matsukura castle across town, and finally secure the region.
Directly next to the park is a cemetary. I think there were a few plaques nearby explaining whose remains were entombed in the graves, but I didn't pay close attention.
Overall the cemetary is pretty small compared to the size of other cemetaries in Takayama.
Continuing down the mountain is Ichi cafe, where I was meeting my client. This is also where you can park your car.
The mountain plateaus at this point and you can continue along for another great view of the city, and take the road back down.
Opposite of this great view is where the Kankou Hotel used to be. With prime real estate on the platea of Kitayama, it gave an amazing view. But now, Kankou Hotel has been completely demolished and the site is nothing but a flat dirt area. COVID was perhaps the final nail in the coffin for the Kankou Hotel. It was probably already struggling from the competition of other newer hotels in Takayama.
Over the last 10 years, tourism in Takayama has exploded, and with the massive income, new hotels have been built in areas next to the station. Kankou Hotel was so far out of the way, nobody would realistically walk there from the station. They did have shuttle busses, but even then, if someone staying at the Kankou Hotel wanted to walk around Takayama, they'd have to go down the mountain and then go back up when returning. It's so much easier for people to just stay in a hotel at street level.
And then COVID happened and foreign tourism was completely halted. To make up some of the lost revenue, the Kankou Hotel used its rooms for people infected with COVID during the lockdown. Local people called it the "COVID jail," and its reputation for being a terrible place grew from there, in addition to whatever cleanup the hotel had to do from its infected guests.
It sucks that such a prominent hotel in the area is now gone, but it's the nature of business.
