On our first trip to Japan, we went to see the small village of Shirakawa (白川村), known for being the site of the Historic Villages of Shirakawa-gō, one of Japan's UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Whereas it was remote and difficult to access until the 1950s, it has become a favorite tourist spot while still maintaining its authenticity (at least it looked like that to us).
We had only time to visit Ogimachi (荻町), the largest village and main attraction so we did as suggested by many guides: we catched a bus from Takayama early in the morning which took us there in about one hour, spent a few hours walking in the village and then took another bus to Kanazawa, our final destination for that day,
The village is comprised of a few houses and farmhouses, constructed in the architectural style known as gasshō-zukuri (合掌造り).
[This style of house] ("prayer-hands construction" style) is characterized by a steeply slanting thatched roof, resembling two hands joined in prayer. The design is exceptionally strong and, in combination with the unique properties of the thatching, allows the houses to withstand and shed the weight of the region's heavy snowfalls in winter.
It makes sense considering that Shirakawa is a mountain village and one of the snowiest places in Japan with yearly average snowfalls in excess of 10 meters (still impressive, even for someone living in Québec the past few years).
We were lucky again with the weather since we had no rain that day, but it had rained the day before and the village was surrounded by mist which sometimes let us see the big mountains around.
Obviously, I highly recommend visiting this place. It is very interesting to see how people were living before (in fact still living there) and how they managed to craft those solid and good-looking houses.
In addition to the sightseeing, multiple shops can be found as well as restaurants and coffee places. In fact, before we left, we chose to take a break at the Coffee Shop Hina in the northern part of the village for a piece of cake and a tea. The place was very quiet, and somehow the owner managed to make us feel like it was the best cake and tea in the world!
All in all, a very pleasant experience illustrated by the following selection of pictures:
One of the houses built using the gasshō-zukuri architectural style
Made me think of the misty scenery shots from The Last Samurai (...but filming location was in New Zealand as it seems)
Bonus: Classy gentlemen taking a break during their visit. I felt "dirty" with my jeans and sneakers next to these guys 😉 And this was not to be our last encounter with chic Asian tourists (have no clue unfortunately whether they are Japanese, Chinese, or from another country).
