Miyama

Kansai, Japan · Countryside / satoyama, Town / small city, Mountain

Fifty houses on a terraced slope above the upper Yura river, thirty-eight of them still thatched, and the state protecting a hundred and twenty-seven hectares of it since 1993: not the houses on their own, the whole valley with its vegetable plots, its stone walls, its lanes and its stone shrines. The roofs are not the ones at Shirakawa-go: here they are the Kitayama type, hipped-and-gabled with crossed ridge timbers. Twice a year, for five minutes each time, the village tests its fire cannons and the water draws arcs over the thatch; it is what brings the most people, and it started because in the year 2000 an arson fire destroyed the village museum. Behind all of it lies the Ashiu forest, a primeval beech wood belonging to Kyoto University where you walk in on foot, by day, on marked routes and after filling in a form.

The essentials

Getting there

Train + bus — It is about thirty-six kilometres from Kyoto and the difference between a good trip and a bad one is the parking. By public transport you take the JR San-in line to Hiyoshi station and then the Nantan city bus to the Kita stop: about forty-five minutes with one change at Shimosasae. By car, the village car park has a hundred spaces and charges (¥500 a car, ¥200 a motorbike, ¥2,000 a minibus and ¥3,000 a coach), open 9:00 to 17:00 from April to November and 10:00 to 16:00 from December to March. What you need to know is that on the two big days of the year, the cannon test and the winter lantern festival, booking and payment are compulsory in advance for every vehicle: no booking, no space, no overflow car parks are opened and you may not leave the car on the road. For the winter festival they also ask for winter tyres and waterproof footwear.

Frequently asked questions about Miyama

What to do in Miyama: 11 activities

• The roofs: fifty houses, thirty-eight thatched 1 h must-see

  The village tourism association counts fifty dwellings and thirty-eight with thatch; Nantan city rounds it off by saying eighty per cent, which does not quite square with thirty-eight out of fifty, so both versions go here. What matters is that these are not the roofs of Shirakawa-go, which are steep and joined like praying hands: these are the Kitayama type, a construction particular to this district, hipped-and-gabled in the irimoya plan, with the chigi, the crossed timber at the ridge, and worked hafu bargeboards as part of the finish. The state dossier singles out that constructional quality as the reason for the protection.

• The whole valley protected, not just the houses 2 h must-see

  What the state protects here since 8 December 1993 is not a set of pretty houses: it is a hundred and twenty-seven point five hectares classified as a farming village, which is an uncommon category on the list. The dossier explains why: the hamlet sits on the uppermost reach of the Yura river, on the old Wakasa highway, ringed by mountains on all four sides, with the river to the south and the north slope terraced into steps where each house has its plot walled in stone and its vegetable garden. Between the plots run village lanes with stone pagodas and stone shrines, and planted pines and persimmons. That is what to look at: not the front of one house, but how the whole thing fits together.

• Five minutes of water over the thatch 1 h only twice a year; in 2026, 20 May and 1 December

  Twice a year the village sets off all the fire cannons distributed among the houses at once, and the water arcs over the thatch. It lasts about five minutes. People travel for hours to see it, so the details are worth getting right. The 2026 dates are 20 May and 1 December. The time does not agree depending on who publishes it: the village tourism association says 13:30 and the national tourism portal says 11:30, both for the same 20 May; for a five-minute spectacle it is worth confirming before setting off. And the origin is not folklore: in May 2000 an arson fire destroyed the village museum, and the annual test came out of that, to check the cannons and to make visitors understand why this has to be protected from fire. Parking that day must be booked and paid in advance.

• The Ashiu forest, with a form and without a car 6 h Ashiu, Miyama, Nantan · 40 min only open from mid-April to mid-December; closed when there is snow

  At the head of the Yura river there is a natural forest that Kyoto University runs as a research station, and you can go in, but with rules worth reading first. Entry runs from mid-April to mid-December and never when there is snow; daytime only and until sunset, no camping; on foot only, no car, bicycle or motorbike; and only on the routes marked on the map, with stream-climbing expressly forbidden. You fill in an entry form and leave it at the office or in the box at the entrance; there is no charge, though donations are accepted. To leave those routes you must go with a guided tour from the authorised local association. The university's own warnings are serious: bears and mamushi vipers are frequent, there is no mobile coverage, there is a risk of getting lost, of falling rocks and of slipping, you should carry a map, and they state that they accept no liability for accidents.

• The indigo workshop inside a thatched house 1 h

  It is not a municipal museum: it is the workshop of an indigo dyer, Shindo Hiroyuki, set up inside an Edo-period thatched house. Downstairs are the sunken indigo vats and the workshop where he works; upstairs, his collection of blue-dyed textiles brought from all over the world, about three hundred pieces according to the village tourism association. Work is for sale. The hours are long: 8:30 to 18:00 from April to September and until 17:00 from October to March, closed the second and fourth Wednesday in January and February and the second in March. It is the visit that explains why these houses are still lived in and used rather than being a set.

• The winter lantern festival, which is no longer called the snow one 2.5 h only late January or early February; the 22nd edition, from 30 January to 6 February 2027

  Almost everything published calls it Yukitoro, the snow lantern. The tourism association titles the twenty-second edition Fuyutoro, the winter lantern, and local television called it the same when covering the January 2026 edition: worth knowing when you go looking for dates. What happens is that at dusk the thatched houses are lit and the hamlet stands out against the evening sky. The dates move: the 2026 edition ran 19 to 23 January and 2027 is announced for 30 January to 6 February. Parking must be booked and paid in advance, ¥1,500 per car as a contribution to the event, in a 16:00 to 19:00 slot; bookings for 2027 opened on 7 September 2026. They ask for winter tyres and waterproof footwear, and no overflow car parks are opened.

• Miyama milk and the ice cream that comes out of it 1 h Ankake, Miyama, Nantan · 15 min

  Fifteen minutes from the hamlet, beside national route 162, is the village's roadside stop, with a local produce shop selling everything from the area's vegetables to mackerel sushi, and next to it the Miyama milk workshop. Nantan city sets out the argument: milk produced with Miyama's water and in its setting, processed so as not to lose the flavour. What you eat there is ice cream: about ten different flavours a day, changing with the season and made mostly with Miyama produce, at ¥500 a scoop or a soft-serve and ¥550 for a double. Open 10:00 to 16:00, closed Mondays except in August, when it does not close.

• The museum that burned and was rebuilt 1 h

  It is a farmhouse some two hundred years old, moved here and opened as a museum in 1993, showing the tools and household things of the old life, and you can climb into the loft, which is where you really understand a thatched roof from the inside. It also has a story of its own: it burned and was rebuilt two years later, and that fire, in May 2000, is the reason the annual water-cannon test exists. Three hundred yen for adults, ¥150 high school and free for primary and junior high. From April to November it opens 9:00 to 17:00 with no closing day, and from December to March 10:00 to 16:00, closed Mondays.

• The nature park that protects this and what surrounds it 1.5 h

  Since 25 March 2016 all of this sits inside a national nature park of sixty-eight thousand eight hundred and fifty-one hectares spread across Kyoto city, Ayabe, Nantan and Kyotanba. It has one detail that explains a lot about how it works: only two per cent of the land is public and the remaining ninety-eight is private, so what is protected rests on agreements with the people who live and work there. What the ministry's dossier lists as reasons for designating it is precisely the mixture: primeval beech and mizunara oak forests among the largest in the cool-temperate zone of western Japan, the thatched villages scattered across the district, Kitayama cedar forestry and the customs tied to all of it, such as horse-chestnut foods. There is a visitor centre.

• The parking rule, which decides the trip 0.5 h

  It deserves a card of its own because it is what ruins the most trips here. The village car park has a hundred spaces and charges: ¥500 a car, ¥200 a motorbike, ¥2,000 a minibus and ¥3,000 a coach, cash on site. It opens 9:00 to 17:00 from April to November and 10:00 to 16:00 from December to March. So far, normal. What is not normal is the big days: for the cannon test and for the winter festival, booking and payment are compulsory in advance for every vehicle, done through the tourism association's website by card or bank transfer, with entry on showing a QR code, no overflow car parks are opened and parking on the road is not allowed. Coaches are also capped at two vehicles per company per day. In winter they ask for winter tyres.

• The Yura river and the landscape it made 2 h

  The Yura rises on Mount Mikuni, where Kyoto, Shiga and Fukui meet, and runs a hundred and forty-six kilometres to the sea with a basin of one thousand eight hundred and eighty square kilometres. Miyama sits at the very top of that course, and the village looks down at the river to the south from its slope. That is not postcard material: the state dossier describes the hamlet exactly that way, set among mountains with the river in front, and the environment ministry's adds that the upper and middle reaches of the Yura and the Katsura support a rich river ecosystem. It is a valley to take slowly, by bicycle or stopping in the neighbouring villages, which also have thatched houses though without Kita's fame.

What only happens on specific dates

• The winter lantern festival, which is no longer called the snow one late January or early February; the 22nd edition, from 30 January to 6 February 2027
• The Ashiu forest, with a form and without a car open from mid-April to mid-December; closed when there is snow
• Five minutes of water over the thatch twice a year; in 2026, 20 May and 1 December

Chains well with

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