Exploring Hida in Takayama

On Wednesday I leave Tokyo in the morning to go further north and inland to the remote Gifu prefecture.

 

Kyoto main train station

 

It is another 4h trip, changing in Nagoya and riding along magnificent views of a river and surrounding fall colours. I was a bit stressing out that I will miss the bus from Takayama to Shirakawa-go, because I didn't really want to arrive during the night since I have no idea how to get to the hotel. But in Takayama I found it easily next to the station. Even better, I had 1h45min to kill in Takayama and most sights were withing 20min walk.

 

So I saw the small temple and its 1200year ginkgo tree in fiery colour, the old merchants houses, and ate mini tayaki and a meat bun. Takayama is located in the Hida region, which is famous for its beef as well, some special soba noodles and hida miso soup.

 

 

And so after much walking around, I boarded the bus for Shirakawa-go, which rode through many tunnels as we got to see the Japanese Alps..

 

 

Only 50min on the highway, we arrived at Shirakawa-go, and I had barely 5min of daylight to get a first impression of this UNESCO classified World Heritage village.

 

But mot impressive of all was the unexpected dinner prepared  by the ryokan owner, with local vegetables she grows locally. I even had a taste of the hida beef...