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Chubu-Sangaku NP, Gifu
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Hirayu’s “hantai tamago” flips the usual onsen egg: the yolk firms while the white stays runny. A 2013 report recorded Tsuruya Shoten cooling its 98°C spring to 65–69°C for a one-hour cook.
In Hirayu’s origin legend, an elderly white monkey healed its bad leg in a hot spring, then guided exhausted soldiers under Takeda Shingen to the water. The story is recorded in the late-Edo account “Hishūshi.”
Hirayu’s Hida gazetteer, completed in 1873, describes just 14 households (70 people), all running inns for bathers. No rice is recorded as a local crop; families brought in rice, miso and sweets to sell to guests.
About 40 spring wells produce roughly 8,600 liters of water a minute—around 12 million liters a day. Hirayu’s springs are more numerous than its inns, and hot-spring water is piped to local homes, too.
Snow once cut Hida villages off, so their pantry favored long-keeping foods: sushi made with salted fish, pickled vegetables and rice koji; hōba miso; and small potatoes simmered in pickle brine. Hirayu eateries serve these regional foods.
One Hirayu bath may look clear, another tea-brown, green-brown or milky white. The many sources feed baths with different appearances and four spring types: bicarbonate, simple, chloride and sulfur.
At Hirayu’s Yubana Festival on May 15, water from the town’s springs is gathered in a great cauldron, then splashed over visitors to pray for health and prosperity. It’s a lively way to give thanks for the hot water.
In Hida, ema—prayer plaques—are often made of paper and hung at home rather than left at a shrine. Hirayu holds its ema market in May alongside the Yubana Festival, while many nearby markets take place in April.
After arriving in Hida in 1914, social educator Shinohara Buzen made Hirayu his community classroom. Villagers built him a youth hall, and he organized youth, young women’s and householders’ groups.
Local folklore says a mountain ascetic boasted that his spells could make boiling water harmless, then plunged into a spring. He slipped on the scale-coated edge, couldn’t escape the heat and died; the spring became known as Yamabushi-no-yu.
Hirayu has its own musical traditions: Hirayu Ondo and Hirayu Kouta are songs and dances associated with this town alone within Okuhida. They’re performed at local festivals.
Hirayu was designated a National Health Resort Hot Spring Area on its own in 1964. In 1968, that recognition expanded to cover the five hot-spring areas of Okuhida.
