Search hotels in Shirakawa

The place is beautiful and peaceful. The village is unique and well deserves to be in the Unesco world heritage list. It is surrounded by beautiful mountains, and I understand there is also a waterfall which we didn't get to see, but must be nice. I wish we could have stayed longer. The view from the observatory is breathtaking. Upon arrival at the visitor center and bus terminal, helpful guides and some refreshments can be found, and trips to other destinations can be efficiently booked and managed. The place has a luggage deposit and a rest area, so the village may be visited upon arrival. There is a shuttle between the visitor center and the observatory leaving from a stop nearby, a 2 minute walk from the bus terminal. We visited end of august and it was way too hot. There are rare, insufficient shaded areas. Water is flowing everywhere but we were told by locals not to drink it. Most places request cash-only, especially the Heritage-run stores. Every facility in the village opens after 11 and is closed around 2 pm, except souvenir shops which close around 4/4.30 pm, before and after that, there is nothing to do and nowhere to go. We stayed at the perfect guest house, and had a super-kind host who took care of all our needs.

Loved it! Quaint little village with thatched roofs, cafes and shops to browse, friendly locals, such a cool atmosphere walking around. Would have loved to have longer, as we only had one night, and 3 hours to wander the village.

the view is beautiful. It is worth a day trip to enjoy the village in the winter. However there is not much else to do there. And every thing becomes a dead town after 5 PM. So either stay a night there, or come extremely early to avoid the crowd (if you have a car!).

Make sure to do your research on the days of snowfall if you qant to catch them with snow on their thatched roofs, because there's not much else to do other than explore the village. During off-peak seasons the town is in lull and not many places are open.

Beautiful villages with various very old wooden house that was amazing and I got a spot on Japanese local television by short interview there :))) I never been there so far so that this time was an unforgettable memories of mine. I will come again in Summer or Autumn time to take more pictures and enjoy local food here.

Beautiful village, quiet and peaceful. I went in December and there were not so many tourists which was nice. The heritage museum has some fantastic traditional Japanese architecture, apart form that you can enter some of the houses in the village that are not part of the museum. There are some restaurants and coffee places, I eat some really good udon there (it was in a traditional house, off the main village road) for 1000 yen. There is a small supermarket close to the bus station. Everything in walking distance (if someone doesn't want to climb up to the view point, there is a bus that goes there every 20 minutes. You can also visit an onsen and relax there (700 yen if you have your own towel). As a non japanew speaker I had no problems, many people spoke English.