Hilma

Where Hilma would send you

1. 1 Gassho Restaurant Sep 30
   Gassho

   ★★★★ Hilma's pick

   Local cuisine restaurant and souvenir shop serving Hida beef, soba, and tochimochi zenzai — an autumn horse-chestnut dumpling in sweet red-bean soup. The name means 'hands joined in prayer', the same gesture the gassho roofs are named for.

   2495-3 Ogimachi, Shirakawa-mura, Ono-gun, Gifu 501-5627, Japan
2. 2 Hakusuien Restaurant Sep 30
   Hakusuien

   ★★★★ Hilma's pick

   A 47-year-old local institution two minutes from the bus terminal. Serves Hida produce — soba, Hida beef, and red turnip pickles — in set meals. Reliable, generous portions, the kind of place locals send their own guests to.

   354 Ogimachi, Shirakawa-mura, Ono-gun, Gifu 501-5627, Japan
3. 3 Shirakawa Hachiman Shrine Landmark Sep 30
   Shirakawa Hachiman Shrine

   ★★★★ Hilma's pick

   The main venue for the Doburoku Festival (Oct 14-15), where doburoku sake is brewed every January in a shrine storehouse. The grounds are quiet the rest of the year — a modest wooden shrine among cryptomeria, with a view over the gassho roofs and valley.

   Ogimachi, Shirakawa-mura, Ono-gun, Gifu, Japan
4. 4 Doburoku Festival Event Sep 30
   Doburoku Festival

   Oct 14 – Oct 19

   ★★★★★ Hilma's pick

   A thousand-year-old harvest festival with Shinto rituals, mikoshi processions, lion dances, folk songs, and the serving of doburoku (unfiltered sake) to visitors. Runs across three shrines over six days in mid-October. The most intimate of Japan's autumn festivals — this is the village celebrating itself, not a show for tourists.

   Shirakawa Hachiman Shrine, Ogimachi, Shirakawa-mura, Ono-gun, Gifu, Japan