District of Edo-period machiya (wooden merchant houses) with craft shops, cafés and free museums.
Naramachi is the historic district of Nara par excellence, a labyrinth of quiet lanes packed with machiya, the wooden house-workshops of the merchants of the Edo period (17th-19th centuries). Unlike the great temples of the park, Naramachi offers a more intimate and everyday Japan. Some of these houses today function as small free-access museums —such as Koshi-no-Ie or Nigiwai-no-Ie— where you can browse the interior of a traditional Japanese home. The district is also full of charming cafés set up in old machiya, local craft shops (calligraphy brushes, ink sticks, ceramics, traditional textiles) and restaurants specialising in Nara cuisine. A curious detail: on the eaves of the houses you will find the migawari-zaru, red cloth amulets in the shape of a monkey hung in garlands, a protective symbol of the district. The stroll costs nothing and can be combined with the covered shops of Higashimuki and Mochiidono. Naramachi is southwest of Nara Park, about a 15-minute walk from Kintetsu Nara station. The best thing is to get lost without a map for a couple of hours first thing in the morning, when the atmosphere is most authentic and the tourists have not yet arrived.
