Shirakawa-go Winter Light-up

The thatched gassho-zukuri farmhouses of Ogimachi, the main village of Shirakawa-go, are a World Heritage Site at any season, but the image that draws the world is of them buried in snow with their windows glowing on a winter night. The village light-up creates exactly that scene on four Sunday evenings, or holiday Mondays, between mid-January and early February, from 17:30 to 19:30, when the houses and the snowbound lanes are illuminated and the classic view from the Shiroyama observatory looks down on the whole village lit against the dark.

Demand outstripped the village years ago, and the light-up is now entirely reservation-based. Every way in, whether a night in one of the farmhouse inns, a seat on an organised bus tour or a parking ticket for a private car, must be booked in advance, and the bookings open in the autumn and go within hours. The Shiroyama viewpoint is a separately ticketed timed entry. There is no way to turn up on the day.

Shirakawa-go is reached by bus from Takayama, Kanazawa or Toyama, and the village is compact enough to walk in an hour, though the snow is deep and the paths icy. A farmhouse stay, if you can secure one, is the way to see the light-up without the tour-bus timetable. Expect a very cold evening, a strictly managed crowd and a spectacle of about two hours; the rest of a winter visit is the quiet of the village by day.