Group of traditional buildings, Tsumago-juku

Historical buildings, some of them hundred years old, can be visited in may places around Japan, but entire neighborhoods of traditional buildings are quite rare. To protect the remaining groups of traditional buildings, a law was enacted in 1975 and a list of 110 protected districts was created, including warrior and merchant districts, pleasure quarters, post towns, mountain villages, mine towns, farming and fishing villages.

Photographed here is one of the most impressive groups of traditional buildings (called Dentōteki Kenzōbutsu-gun in Japanese). It's a street of Tsumago-juku in Nagano, one of the 69 Stations of the Nakasendō, which was one of the five routes connecting Edo to Kyoto during the medieval period.