Continuing on from my recent trip to Shirakawa-go, here's a report from my first day in the Hida area, in which I passed through Takayama and stayed in a smaller village called Hida-Furukawa. The trip was operated by Satoyama Experience.
A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to have the chance to take part in a trip organised by Satoyama Experience to Hida-Furukawa in Gifu Prefecture. While I was in that neck of the woods I decided to take a short 1-hour hop to the small village named Shirakawago, famous in the world ever since its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.
Now, some may say I'm a stick in the mud, but I've never considered myself the kind of man who gets excited at the thought of going fruit picking. Call me old fashioned, but that's just the way I was brought up. However, it's always good to try something, at least once in life, perhaps... And so it was that I found myself on a bus with a group of people, heading out of Tokyo on our way to rural Yamanashi Prefecture. After a short stop at a service station, we arrived at Miharashien and found ourselves surrounded by rolling fields with crooked trees growing in orderly lines.
Day One
The small minibus wound its way up the side of the mountain, I looked around at the winter trees sticking out in prickly leafless thickets with the occasional smattering of long thin pines. The sky was blue and the sun was shining, and I was on my way to the Hotel Mt. Fuji. Sitting up high at 1,100 meters, as the name would suggest, the hotel offers some of the finest views of the majestic old mountain that any in Japan can offer. Situated on the shores of Lake Yamanakako, one of Mount Fuji's 5 lakes, this hotel provides the perfect retreat for those looking to take in some real nature while visiting Japan.
Take a look at our photo gallery of a day of cycling in Hida-Furukawa, organised by Satoyama Cycling!