Wanosato Takayama: Traditional Ryokan in Gifu

Stay Wanosato Takayama has just eight rooms and villas. All are furnished with futon beds and come with sitting areas, large baths with cedar-wood soaking tubs and picturesque river and forest views. The four villas vary in size and design but all are elegantly decorated with heavy timbers, natural materials and four- to five-meter high ceiling, creating a wide-open space. The four standard rooms are simply decorated and enjoy the traditional compliments of a Japanese ryokan.

ChildCare Families with children are welcome to stay at Wanosato Takayama but there are no specific facilities available for children. 

Dine The dining hall on the first floor of the Wanosato Takayama is decorated with centuries old 'Shunkei-nuri' or red lacquered wood. Here you are served hearty mountain vegetables (sansei), freshly caught river fish (wasakana) and Hida Beef around an ‘irori’, or traditional sunken hearth. After dinner, locally distilled sake can be sampled around the large raised hearth that takes centre stage downstairs.

Relax Wanosato has been blessed with the waters of the Miagawa River, and the natural underground spring in which its healing waters are incorporated into a part of each guest’s rooms. There are no plastic water bottles here as both guests and staff are at ease to drink from the tap. For relaxing there are two indoor baths, one for men and one for women, however, to enjoy the hot springs, there are beautiful public baths.

Experience Wanosato Takayama is situated in the ‘Snow country’, a talismanic phrase in the Japanese lexicon relating to purer, simpler world where city dwellers can go to cleanse their souls. The crowning grace of the area is the pretty boutique town of Takayama; foreigner-friendly than almost anywhere else in Japan. It has its own cluster of traditional ‘A’ shaped houses but its beauty lies in its narrow lanes of two-story wooden houses of the kind that have disappeared almost everywhere else.