Futagawa was one of the post towns on the Tokaido, the great road between Edo and Kyoto. Its honjin, the inn reserved for daimyo and other high-ranking travellers, survived where almost all the others disappeared. The museum uses the restored inn, adjoining merchant house, and exhibits on road travel to show how formal, controlled, and expensive movement could be in Edo-period Japan.
It is the most distinctive sight in Toyohashi. The buildings are low, wooden, and quiet, but the detail is excellent: room hierarchy, gates, kitchens, waiting spaces, and the whole choreography of status on the road.