Tono Furusato Village — Attraction in Tono

The recreated village has a lot of traditional L shaped houses typical of this area.

These houses housed both the horses and the humans under the same roof, which shows how important the horses were to the lives of people living in this area during the Edo period.

If you plan to visit other sites in Tono, make sure you ask for the combined discount tickets. These will save you a few hundred yen.

We were not pleased that the site had an unscheduled closure - the staff at the park told me that they had announced this on their website but when I went on their website, I could see that the closure had been announced but only three days prior to the closure date. Hardly an advanced notice considering that most people plan their trips months in ahead, especially when visiting a remote town like Tono where it is difficult to book a reasonably priced quality accommodation!

If you are short of time, skip this place and visit Densho-en instead, it is closer to the town centre and it has everything Tono Furusato Village has albeit at a much...

I had such a fun time here! It's basically a bunch of old Japanese farmhouses that they gathered into one place surrounded by beautiful trees and nature. However, each house had a person attending it, stoking the fires and willing to help you out if there was any hands-on experience you could try. The interiors also had different traditional items on display so even if each house seemed similar they all had their different charm, making each one worth popping into. My favorite were the ones that had the horses in them too. It's one thing to hear and read about how the people used to share their homes with horses but it was so special to be able to see actual horses and get a better feel for what it may have been like back when people actually lived there.

In the entrance there is a restaurant, gift shop, and some bathrooms. While there are provisions available to make the entrance house wheelchair accessible, once you get into the park itself it is nothing but uneven dirt/gravel paths and and steep steps to get...

Basically it's old traditional Japanese houses with thatch roofs. The problem is that it's about the same building, 6 or 7 times. Some have a horse or a poney inside. That's all. The houses are big and beautiful, but they are just spread in a wide area, so you spend time walking between them. Now here is the thing, you can see exactly the same house closer to Tono and for cheaper at tenshouen. On top of that, tenshouen has more interesting stuff to show, like a better and condensed version of the furusato village. At the end of the village, close to the shine, there is a small barn with big wooden phallic statues, that can be surprising when you discover them without an explanation. Be careful if you are with kids. So, I'd say not...