Takayama is a town deep in the Japanese Alps. The name of the town means tall mountains. What I found very beautiful about this place is the old traditional houses.
From Takayama I did a tour to Shirakawa-go. Of course I could have gone with public transportation, but it would one way would cost 2600 yen, so in total 5400 yen and I paid 4300 yen (36 euro).
The drive was 50 minutes. Unfortunately the weather was bad, it rained almost continuously and it was cold, 0 degrees. On the way there it was something that looked like a snowstorm. But in the village it didn’t snow at all, it was just rain.
The village is known for the houses in gasshou-style. Gasshou in Japansese means the way they put hands together when they pray; because the houses’ roofs look like that, so the name of gasshou-style house.
The guide said that a German architect visited the place long long time ago and because he liked it a lot, he introduced this style to Europe. Heh this sounds interesting, I didn’t know this.
So here are the houses:
The roofs have to be changed every 30 years and it costs around 100.000 euro. Because most of the people living in the country side in Japan are generally old and poor, it’s hard to pay so much every 30 years, it’s actually cheaper to construct a new one. But the houses are considered World Heritage Site so it’s not allowed to not take care of these houses, that’s why the government pay 90% and the owner has to pay 10%.
The roofs were built like that to prevent the snow from staying too long on the roof. They are unfortunately highly inflammable, so they have a good plan for fire extinguish:
The view from the Observatory:
