Shirakawa-go, Kenrokuen & Higashi Chaya Day Tour with Crafts Kanazawa

Shirakawa-go, the village of thatched gassho houses

Shirakawa-go lies in the Shogawa River valley in the mountains of Gifu Prefecture, about eighty minutes from Kanazawa by expressway. Its main village, Ogimachi, is famous for gassho-zukuri farmhouses: wooden houses with steep thatched roofs that look like hands joined in prayer, built without nails to shed the heavy snow of these valleys. The large attics were once used for raising silkworms, and villagers still rethatch the roofs together as a community.

Shirakawa-go became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995. On this Shirakawa-go day trip from Kanazawa you spend about two hours and twenty minutes in the village: a guided walk along the lanes and rice fields, then free time to visit a farmhouse museum, take photos and have lunch, perhaps grilled Hida beef, a regional specialty. Is Shirakawa-go worth visiting? In every season, from green summer fields to deep winter snow, it is one of the most beautiful villages in Japan.

Kenroku-en Garden

Back in Kanazawa, the tour enters Kenroku-en, one of the three great gardens of Japan. Created over almost two centuries by the lords of the Kaga domain beside their castle and opened to the public in 1874, it takes its name from the six qualities of a perfect garden: spaciousness, seclusion, human artistry, a sense of age, flowing water and wide views.

Your guide shows you how the landscape is designed as a sequence of viewpoints, with water, trees, stones, bridges and teahouses revealed one after the other. Look for the two-legged Kotoji stone lantern by Kasumigaike Pond, the symbol of Kanazawa, and in winter the yukitsuri ropes that protect the pine branches from snow. You spend about an hour here, and the Kenroku-en admission ticket is included. Plum and cherry blossom in spring and red maples in November are the best times to visit Kenroku-en.

Kanazawa Castle Park

From Kenroku-en the group walks across to Kanazawa Castle Park through the area around the Ishikawa-mon Gate. This was the seat of the Kaga lords, one of the richest domains of the Edo period, and the castle grounds still show their power: massive stone walls built in several different techniques, white walls and roofs covered with lead tiles that look silver-white in the sun.

Several turrets and the long Gojukken Nagaya storehouse were carefully rebuilt in wood using traditional methods, and they make a striking backdrop for photos. The castle is part of the walk rather than a long visit, so it gives you a feeling for the scale of old Kanazawa before the craft workshops. If you have more time in the city, the grounds are free to enter and easy to revisit on your own.

Japanese sweets making or Daruma painting

Kanazawa is one of the great confectionery cities of Japan, with a long tradition of delicate sweets made for the tea ceremony. In this fifty-minute workshop a local artisan teaches you how to shape wagashi by hand, using sweet bean paste and simple wooden tools to create small seasonal forms such as flowers and leaves.

Depending on the craftsman's schedule, the workshop may instead be painting a Daruma doll, the round red good-luck figure that Japanese families keep for wishes and new beginnings. Either way the experience is fun for adults and children alike, the fee is included, and you keep what you make: the sweets are delicious, and a hand-painted Daruma is a charming souvenir of Kanazawa.

Higashi Chaya District and gold leaf

The day ends in the Higashi Chaya District, a teahouse quarter established in 1820 where geisha entertained guests with music and dance. Its stone-paved lanes are lined with two-storey wooden teahouses with fine latticed facades, and in the evening you can still sometimes hear the shamisen from inside. It is the most photographed street in Kanazawa and a favourite place for a slow walk.

Kanazawa produces almost all of the gold leaf made in Japan, and Higashi Chaya is full of gold-leaf shops. Here you make your own postcard decorated with real gold leaf, a short and delicate craft included in the tour, and you can try the famous ice cream topped with a sheet of gold leaf at your own cost. You spend about an hour in the district before the short coach ride back to Kanazawa Station.