Kanazawa to Takayama via Gokayama and Shirakawa-go

After a couple of weeks of using Japan's extremely efficient public transport system, we decided to hire a car to drive ourselves to Takayama so that we can visit some out of the way places.  And having the car allowed us to easily visit Gokayama and Shirakawa-go.

Gokayama lies on the Shogawa River Valley and is in the remote mountains that span from Gifu to Toyama Prefectures.  It was declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1995 and is famous for its traditional 'praying hands' farm houses some of which are more than 250 years old.  

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 

Shirakawago's largest village Ogimachi is a little larger than Gokayama and also home to some well preserved 'praying hands' farmhouses.  They are shaped that way so that the snow can slide off.  It was only autumn when we were there but it was already quite cold, so I can imagine that these parts of the Japanese alps would be bitterly cold in winter.  

 
 
 
 

 

We discovered these warm beef buns (made out of Hida beef, which is like Wagyu beef) that was perfect to warm us up after wandering around in the cold. 
 
 
We were very close to the Alps and we were glad to get back into the car to get to Takayama.  But  we found out the hard way that you actually need to be able to read Japanese to be able to use their GPS. Alternatively, you could type in the phone number of your destination but we had no idea what the phone number of our Air BnB would be.  What should have taken us an hour to get to Takayama from Shirakawago took us at least 3 hours!
 
 

After an exhausting, at times scary (because we could not work out how to get off the freeway and all its tunnels) and all the time frustrating drive, we finally found our Air BnB in Takayama which turned out to be an old Izakaya den.  We were starving and came across this restaurant just 5 minutes from our Air BnB that specialised in Hida beef.