Arimatsu Historic Town

Arimatsu is the best-preserved post town in the Nagoya area, half an hour south of the city on the Meitetsu line. About a kilometre of the old Tokaido road has survived more or less intact, lined with shibori workshops, low-eaved merchant houses, and a small museum (the Arimatsu-Narumi Shibori Kaikan) where you can watch master craftsmen at work and buy directly from them.

The Festival of the Floats on the first weekend of October pulls three ornate festival carts through the town, decorated with hand-carved figures and mechanical karakuri puppets. The town is small — a leisurely loop including the museum takes about three hours. Arimatsu Station (Meitetsu Nagoya line), then a five-minute walk.

things to do sight
A story
Arimatsu was founded in 1608 as a planned post town on the Tokaido highway between Edo and Kyoto. From the start its specialism was shibori — the intricate tie-dye technique that produces the rippled patterns on indigo cotton — and the same handful of family workshops have been practising it on the same street for over 400 years. The recognised pattern repertoire runs to over 100 named techniques, most existing nowhere else.