Japan's Tohoku offers a laidback road trip rich in history and traditions

The Takayama Inari Shrine snakes like a dragon on the wintry landscape.

The ancient Samurai mansions, with their exhibits of armour and artefacts, were interesting, but we kept getting distracted by snow falling outside. Our dismay at the raindrops that greeted us when we disembarked from our bus in the Samurai district of Kakudate had turned into sheer delight as it started snowing, more and more heavily. The Japanese garden in the compound of the old Samurai mansion was soon blanketed in white, and we simply couldn’t look away.

We were in Tohoku, which literally means North-Eastern region, in the north of Japan’s main island, Honshu, on a trip organised by Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO).