Shinshiro, Aichi

The Iida Line threads through the mountains into Shinshiro, and by the time the train slows at the station, the air has shifted — denser, greener, the plain giving way to ridgelines. The Toyokawa River runs through the center of town, and the hills pressing in from all sides belong to Tenryu Okumikawa and Aichi Kogen natural parks, with Horaiji-san rising above the rest.

History sits unevenly here. The 1575 battle of Nagashino was fought on this ground, and the ruins of Nagashino Castle and Furumiya Castle remain, along with the Toshogu shrines listed among the cultural properties. Every spring, the Nobori Festival recalls the battle with banners and procession. But history is not the only register. Tōhoji and Eishuji — both Soto Zen temples founded in the early sixteenth century — stand quietly in the valley, and at Kansenji, a Koyamaki cypress of more than six hundred years' growth has been designated a national natural monument, its trunk wide enough to pause in front of.

The local table runs to ayu from the river, gohei-mochi grilled on skewers, Hōrai beef, and the round taro variety called Yanamarumaru. Tea is grown here too — Mikawa Shinshiro-cha — and the terraced fields that produce it sit above the valley floor. The 1925 bank building in Ono-juku, now operating as the Hōraikан café and gallery, holds its original proportions intact. Pencils are made here, tires, motors — the town carries its manufacturing alongside its rice paddies and silk traditions without announcing either.