Nicely conserved town, beautiful view from observatory point which is about 10 minutes walk up. We calculated 4 hours but 3 hours is enough. Lots of tourists. We visited this as a stopover between Takayama and Kanazawa, you can store luggage in the tourist office (lockers). Note that the bus from Shirakawago to Kanazawa is reserved seats only. But we could easy change our previously reserved seats to an earlier bus.
It starts already when you cross the hanging bridge to the village from bus parking sight.
If you are nature lover it is even worth enough to visit there to experience this overwhelming view of mountain and river hinted with Gassho housing.
And in the village itself you feel you time travel back to the way it was in Japanese farmer village. I am sure the best season would be in autum when the trees changes their colors and also in winter when the mountains covered with snow.
It is similar to many but if you haven't seen one before definitely worth a visit and it's a gorgeous village.
Shirakawago Gasho Zukuri Minkaen is a museum version of Shirakawa village, which is located just beside the parking of Shirakawa village. It is very informative and interesting. You can visit it before your tour to Shirakawa village to get some idea. Be careful, however, not to spend much time here! Otherwise, you do not enough time to visit the authentic Shirakawa village.
We went at end of day around 4pm and was very empty and was nice to be relieved of the crowds elsewhere in Shirakawa. We didn't go in the buildings because didn't want to take off our shoes but looked into them and enjoyed just walking around the grounds to get a taste of what the town was like way back when!
