Sawara 佐原

Edo prosperity

Katori City (formerly Sawara, grouped with other townships) is located in Chiba Prefecture, 70 kilometers east of Tokyo , and 15 kilometers from Narita International Airport . It is the story of a small farming village that becomes a prosperous trading village thanks to the Tone River. Because in the Edo period (1603-1868), the goods that come from the Tohoku region, north of Tokyo, take the Tone River rather than the sea route of the Pacific coast, which is much more dangerous and uncertain. It was the Shogun Tokugawa who decided to develop the Tone River into a waterway. The village of Sawara, located on the banks of the Tone River, then became an important point and prospered very quickly from the end of the Edo period. It is nicknamed Edo masari, "much more beautiful and better than Edo". In 1787, 35 breweries (sake, shoyû, miso) were in operation in Sawara. It was Edo's scullery!

To read: Visit Tokyo in the footsteps of the Tokugawa

The small Ono River, which connects the Tone River, crosses Sawara, lined with traditional merchant houses, commission houses, grain granaries, preserved as they were then. It is all the architecture of the Edo and Meiji period that you find concentrated there. The yanagi tree, the weeping willow, runs along the river on which small boats sail peacefully.

• Sawara no Taisai (a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage since 2016) consists of two festivals , in July and October. It is one of the 3 great matsuri of Kanto (along with Kawagoe Hikawa and Hitachino kuni sôjagû) with about ten floats surmounted by gigantic figures parading through the streets to the sound of music.
• Suigo Sawara Ayame Park is an aquatic botanical garden that can be visited by boat . From the end of May to June you can admire 1,500,000 irises of 400 different varieties , and 300 kinds of lotus throughout the summer, which will make your head spin! With a bit of luck (during the iris festival in June) you will see the bride and groom in traditional clothes taking a boat trip.