Shirakawa-go & Takayama

Gifu prefecture

National Heritage sites & breath-taking landscapes await, as long as you can avoid the crowd.

Shirakawa-go

A Unesco site, its place as one of the most beautiful and popular site in Japan is well deserved. However, the throng of tourists can lessen the pleasure; so ensure you get the timing right, as I did below....

From Tokyo, a bus will take 6 hours to reach Takayama, from which it is a further hour to reach Shirakawa-go. The landscape is striking; enjoy the journey.. 

If the view from the observatory is beautiful (especially between mid-january to mid-february, when the village is litten up…)…

…walking through it at dawn really is magic. To beat the (huge!) crowd, take a hostel in the village itself, wake up very early and you will have the village all for yourself. From 09h00 the bus tours start arriving, unloading hundreds of visitors. You can imagine the serenity is kind of lost….

A couple of hours should give you enough time to enjoy the location. Then, from 08h45, the museum opens..

Poras Raoul Jean Raymond 　 ポラス　ラウル ジーンレイモンド