These two villages in the region of Chubu, in the heart of Japan, have conserved their exceptional houses with pointed thatched roofs. The living remains of architecture designed to protect against the rigours of a mountain winter.

Welcome to ancient Japan, the Japan of mountain villages hidden away in the heart of the Japanese Alps. Shirakawa-go and Gokayama are on the island of Honshu, to the west of Tokyo, in that central part of the island known as Chubu. About a hundred kilometres to the north of Takayama (the “little Kyoto” of the Alps), the two villages on the edge of the river Sho owe their reputation to their magnificent traditional thatched houses with triangular roofs, where several generations of the same family can cohabit. These imposing houses, several stories high, known as gassho-zukuri, are born out of a need to adapt to a hostile climate, as their sloping roofs do not allow the snow to lie. Their isolation during the long winter months has led the inhabitants of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama to make a virtue out of community spirit. Inside the houses that have always been inhabited, the people who lived there once raised silk worms and produced gun powder. Both the cloth and the powder were carried on men’s backs away across the mountains. Nowadays these two villages and their hamlets scattered along superb valleys are important tourist attractions and have retained all their former charm. Some gassho-zukuri have been turned into restaurants and give visitors the opportunity to immerse themselves in this singular and timeless Japan.