Private Full-Day Tour to Takayama and Shirakawa from Nagoya

We suggest that you visit the morning market first, as it closes at noon. At the morning market, you can buy seasonal vegetables, fruits, and also souvenirs. Most of the shops don't accept credit card. Please bring some cash for shopping.

You can visit the old merchant street, where most of the main attractions are found. You will discover sake breweries, shops that sell local food and traditional wooden craft and furniture shops (the Hida region is famous for its quality timber and carved wooden products). Your tour guide driver knows a lot about the best restaurants and cafes in this area, so for lunch you can either take his advice, or you can pick up several delicious street foods as you wander. Try the area’s specialities such as mitarashi dango, Hida beef, miso on magnolia leaf and local sake.

This place is worth visiting! An old samurai office house where you can learn about life 300 years ago.

Takayama Festival Float Museum, where you can learn about the town’s biannual festival and its spectacular floats.

It's next to "Takayama Festival Floats Exhibition Hall" building. You can see one-tenth scale replica of Nikko-Toshogu Shrine are exhibited in this museum. Nikko-Toshogu enshrined Ieyasu Tokugawa (the first Shougun, which is located in Tochigi-pref, near Tokyo.

Your driver-guide will take you to Shirakawa-go, an UNESCO registered site. We recommend that you first visit the observatory, which looks over this picturesque village nestled in the mountains. Refresh yourself with the clean air and the beauty of the flowers and surrounding mountains.

As you wander through the village, admire the preserved thatched houses made in the gassho-zukuri style. Gassho-zukuri means "constructed like hands in prayer", as the farmhouses' steep thatched roofs resemble the hands pressed together in prayer. The houses are still lived in and maintained by local people. Some of these traditional houses are also used for accommodation, as well as museums. To understand just how adapted the village is for life in the mountains, we recommend that you visit one the museums, such as Wada House. * All the museums need admission fee from 300JPY to 600JPY. Afterwards perhaps take a break at a café, or explore the traditional craft shops, shrines and temples.