Shirakawa-go and Gokayama together form one of the most photographed rural landscapes in Japan, and for once the photographs are not misleading. Across the border between Gifu and Toyama prefectures, in the deep valley of the Sho River, farming families built houses with huge triangular thatched roofs, some of them three or four storeys high, angled at sixty degrees to shed the heavy winter snow. The roofs are made of reeds without a single nail, and they need rethatching every few decades, a task the village does collectively, in a tradition called yui, with the whole community turning out to help.
Ogimachi, in Shirakawa-go, is the largest of the villages, with more than a hundred gassho houses, and it is busy for a reason. Some of the houses are open to visitors, with smoky hearths and attic floors where silkworms were once raised, and a viewpoint on the hill gives the famous panorama of roofs among rice fields. A UNESCO listing in 1995 brought crowds, and in the middle of the day, in high season, the village is very full. Early morning or late afternoon, when the day-trippers have left, is the time to come. In winter, on selected evenings, the village is lit up in the snow, with timed entry.
The ride here from Kanazawa is a good one. You can take the expressway through a long series of tunnels in about an hour and a quarter, or follow the older roads up the Sho River, with its dams, gorges and little onsen villages, and the valley is a place of strong, sudden weather. Snow can close the high roads in winter, and spring is often rainy, while autumn brings the best colour.
Fuel is limited in the valley, and the nearest large town on the north side is Fukumitsu, some seventeen kilometres away, so fill there, or in Kanazawa. In the village you can try Hida beef, grilled over charcoal, or hoba miso, miso cooked on a magnolia leaf, and soba noodles. Parking is at the edge, and you walk in over a long suspension bridge.