Goyu Summer Festival

A show of floats and fireworks

The Goyu Summer Festival is a festival for Goyu Jinja Shrine. The shrine is located in the small town of Goyu, which was once a post town along the Old Tokaido Road, a major highway connecting Edo (present-day Tokyo) and Kyoto. Post towns acted as pit stops for travelers to make purchases or find lodging, and Goyu was established as the 35th along the lengthy route from Edo's Nihombashi Bridge by shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu.
The town has long had a reputation for its love of fireworks, and so during the Goyu Summer Festival, 3,000 magnificent fireworks—airborne and fountain-like gushing varieties—are launched into the air in addition to numerous fireworks shot off around the Otowa River terrace.