Aoi Festival

Aoi Festival's highlight is its parade with people dressed in classic costumes of the Heian-period. Special carriages called 'Gosho Guruma' and oxcarts, which were common 1,000 years ago, can be seen. The name of the festival was derived from the fact that starting in 1694, everything in the procession, such as the people, carts and the oxcarts, became to be decorated with hollyhock leaves, which are called "aoi" in Japanese. The parade starts from the Kyoto Imperial Palace and proceeds through town to the Shimogamo Shrine, and then on to the Kamigamo Shrine. It seems like a reproduction of a historical scene from an ancient scroll.