Shirakawa-go is a small farming village located high in the mountains southeast of Kanazawa. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site, with its traditional houses still intact and lived in.

The architectural style of steeply pitched roofs with their dense, thick layers of thatching, is known as gassho-zukuri (“prayer-hands construction”), and it’s effective in the winter, when the snowfall can be heavy.

Nothing much in this village has changed–except for the occasional car or truck, and a scattering of buildings with more modern roofs–and the busloads of tourists that arrive every day.

Signs are posted everywhere not to smoke. You can imagine the devastation a small spark might cause!

Though most of the houses are private, a few of the larger houses, as well as the monastery associated with the local shrine, allow entry. Some of the houses are quite large–to our amazement, five stories high under those steep roofs! There is room for a large extended family and for indoor industries, such as silk-worm cultivation. The interiors of the shrine and the houses are fascinating.

Oh . . . have I mentioned the village was full of tourists? There was a steady stream of us through the few open houses. We came to see the architecture, and we were glad we did. But even more interesting was the work being done by the residents of this living village. I’ll show some of that in the next post.