Full-day tour from Nagoya: Shirakawa-go & Takayama Old Town

This full-day tour from Nagoya reaches deep into the Hida mountains for two of Japan's most atmospheric places. In Takayama, the "Little Kyoto of Hida," the Sanmachi old town keeps its sake breweries, craft shops and cafés between dark timber facades, with the Miyagawa morning market and Takayama Jinya — the only surviving Edo-period government office — a stroll away. Then comes Shirakawa-go, the UNESCO World Heritage village whose steep thatched gassho-zukuri farmhouses were built to shoulder Japan's heaviest snows, seen whole from the Ogimachi observatory and up close at the 400-year-old Wada House. In winter the village turns into a fairy tale under snow; in spring and autumn, Takayama's ornate festival floats take to the streets.