Gifu

The farmhouses in the northern valleys are built with roofs pitched at around sixty degrees so that several metres of snow slide off rather than accumulate, with large open attics that were used for raising silkworms and floors laid to let smoke rise from the hearth and cure the timber.

A roof like that cannot be re-thatched by the household that lives under it. It is done by the village turning out together, house by house in rotation, which is a cooperative arrangement that has outlived the silk economy that created it. Knowing that changes the visit: these are not exhibits but working homes maintained by an obligation between neighbours, so keep to the paths, do not enter gardens, and pay to go inside the houses that are open rather than peering into the ones that are not. The viewpoint above the valley is worth the climb, and is best early.

Three days, following one line north. Nagoya to Gifu City is twenty minutes; Gifu to Takayama is about two and a quarter hours up the Hida valley on a limited express that is itself worth the seat; and Shirakawa-go is roughly fifty minutes by bus beyond Takayama. That is the spine, and it works without a car.

Takayama deserves two nights rather than one — the morning markets, the old merchant streets and the festival floats are a full day, and the village of Hida Furukawa twenty minutes further north is a quieter version of the same thing.

Four days lets you add Gero Onsen on the way up or down, or continue west from Shirakawa-go into Toyama, which turns the trip into a crossing rather than an out-and-back. Gifu City itself, with its cormorant fishing on the river, is a summer evening rather than a day.

Nagoya is the gateway: the JR Takayama line limited express runs from Nagoya to Takayama in about two and a quarter hours, and Gifu City is 20 minutes from Nagoya on the Tokaido line. Chubu Centrair is the nearest airport. Shirakawa-go has no railway — it is a bus from Takayama in about 50 minutes, or from Kanazawa and Toyama on the Hokuriku side — and those buses need reserving in peak season. Gujo Hachiman is on the Nagaragawa Railway from Mino-Ota. Takayama's old town is walkable from its station. For the Hida back roads and Gero's outlying baths, a car is easier, and mountain passes close in winter.

The Hida valley line plus the Shirakawa-go buses cover the whole standard itinerary, and the buses need booking in high season — they are the bottleneck rather than the trains. Takayama itself is walkable and rents bicycles.

A car opens the side valleys, the Gujo Hachiman water town, the smaller thatched hamlets and the mountain roads toward Nagano, and it makes the winter illumination evenings at Shirakawa-go workable when the buses are full. It is also the only sensible way to reach the pottery towns of the south around Tajimi. In winter, everything north of Gero is proper snow country and the mountain routes east are closed.

On the clear river running through the south of this prefecture, fishermen have worked with trained cormorants for well over a thousand years, and the practice has continued under imperial patronage rather than as a revival. It happens at night through the summer: boats work by the light of hanging fire baskets, the birds dive on lines, and spectators watch from craft that drift alongside.

Treat it as an evening rather than a sight. The season runs through the warm months with a break on certain dates, boats are booked in advance, and it starts after dark, so it anchors the whole day rather than slotting into one. The fish they are catching is the same sweetfish that is salt-grilled whole in the restaurants along the bank, which is worth eating before you board — the two halves belong together and most visitors only do one of them.

The Takayama festival dates in April and October, unless you are coming for them — the town is small, the floats are extraordinary and the accommodation is booked out a year ahead in some cases. The winter illumination evenings at Shirakawa-go are similar in miniature: a handful of dates, ticketed access, and transport that must be arranged well in advance.

August in Gifu City is hot and humid, though the cormorant fishing on the river is an evening activity and unaffected. The genuinely flat period is late November into December before the snow settles, when the foliage has gone, the villages are brown and the winter lighting has not started.

Hida beef is raised in the northern mountains and sold in Takayama in every format the old town can think of, including grilled on a skewer to eat while walking. Ayu, sweetfish, is caught in the Nagara through summer and salt-grilled whole; the cormorant fishing exists because of it. Keichan is a Gero and Gujo dish of chicken fried with cabbage in miso or soy on a hot plate. Gohei-mochi is pounded rice pressed onto a flat skewer and grilled with walnut or sesame miso, sold at roadside stops across the Hida and Kiso valleys.

The two halves need different months. Hida in the north is snow country from December to March, and the Shirakawa-go light-up evenings in January and February are ticketed by lottery. Takayama's spring festival falls on April 14–15 and the autumn one on October 9–10, both of which fill every room in the town. Cormorant fishing on the Nagara runs from mid-May to mid-October, on the river at night. The southern plain is hot and humid in summer, above 34°C, while Takayama at 570 metres stays noticeably cooler. Late October to early November brings colour to the Hida valleys.

First visit: Takayama and Shirakawa-go, in that order and with two nights in Takayama. The old merchant quarter is dark-timbered and largely intact, the morning markets are real rather than staged, and the sake breweries on one street will each let you taste. Shirakawa-go is fifty minutes away by bus and is best seen either very early or by staying the night, because the day-trip window is when it is fullest.

A second visit should go to Gujo Hachiman and the Gero valley — a town built around channels of running water where the summer dance goes on for nights at a time, and a hot-spring town on the river below. Add the pottery country in the south around Tajimi and Mino, where the kilns have been working for centuries and almost no foreign visitor ever goes.