Higashi Chaya District

The Higashi Chaya District is the largest and best preserved of Kanazawa's old geisha quarters, a grid of narrow lanes lined with wooden teahouses built in the early nineteenth century. Their distinctive latticed facades and second-storey rooms, where geisha once entertained guests with music and dance, remain largely intact and are protected as a heritage streetscape. Several buildings are open as museums or as shops selling gold-leaf crafts, a specialty of the city. In late light the timber frontages take on a quietly evocative atmosphere.