Shirakawa-go is a village located in Gifu Prefecture and is one of the UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites.
The houses in the village are made in a gassho-zukuri style.
The first few months when we moved in Japan I made a list on my phone of places where we plan to visit. Shirakawa-go was one of them.
But, after 2 years of Covid restrictions across the country, finally last month we got to plan 3 days road trip to this magnificent place.
Pre-road trip preparations
From our city (Ashiya) to Shirakawa-go is a straight 5 hours trip. Since we were traveling with our 3 year old daughter we didn’t really wanted her to be stuck in a car for 5 hours, so we booked a hotel somewhere in the middle of the road trip.
I booked us 2 nights in hotel Fairfield by Marriott in Mino Gifu – the hotel looked pretty decent on the pictures and it was not too expensive.
The plan was:
DAY 1
11:30 Have early lunch at home
12:00 Drop Yoshi to the pet sitter
12:15 Head the road
15:30 Check in at the hotel and spend the rest of the afternoon there
DAY 2
07:00 Have breakfast
08:00 Drive to Shirakawa-go for 2 hours
Spend the rest of the day around the village
DAY 3
08:00 Have breakfast and spend few hours by the river next to the hotel
11:30 Check out from the hotel
12:00 Have lunch
12:30 Head back home