Gifu Gujo Onsen

Gujo, in the Nagara River valley of central Gifu Prefecture surrounded by mountains, is celebrated throughout Japan for the Gujo Odori — a month-long summer bon dance festival held from mid-July through early September in which the entire town dances through the night in a joyfully participatory community tradition that attracts visitors from across Japan to join the all-night dancing in the historic castle town streets. Gifu Gujo Onsen draws on sodium and bicarbonate thermal waters from the geothermal resources of the Nagara River mountain valley zone, offering restorative baths in a castle town whose extraordinary summer dance festival, the beautifully preserved machiya townscape with its ancient drainage channels, and the pristine Nagara River headwaters create one of the most joyfully cultural and naturally beautiful spa settings in the Tokai mountain region. The Gujo Odori all-night summer dance festival, the Gujo Hachiman Castle perched dramatically above the river confluence, and the extraordinary plastic food sample manufacturing heritage — Japan's famous restaurant display food replicas were invented in Gujo — create an astonishingly varied and culturally distinctive thermal spa destination in the Nagara River highlands of Gifu Prefecture.