Edo-period mechanical puppets still move today. The Sanno Festival announces spring in the old castle town of Takayama, drawing twelve ornately carved and gilded floats into its historic streets. The highlight is the puppet offering, in which figures controlled by strings alone dance, write characters, and somersault in time with flutes and drums atop the floats. There is no electricity, no motor, only intricate mechanisms built by Edo-era craftsmen that still run with precision centuries later. The tradition grew in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries from the union of Hida's master carpentry and merchant wealth, and the floats have been likened to a moving temple gate. At dusk, more than a hundred lanterns are lit and the floats move through the night. If the cherry blossoms are out, spring in Hida is almost unbearably beautiful. A UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.