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Yoro Town is located in the southwest of Gifu Prefecture, in the center of the Japanese archipelago. It is a town with a rich history, blessed with abundant water sources. In the center of the town is Yoro Falls, which has a tradition of rejuvenation, and many cultural figures, including ancient emperors, have visited the area in search of its mysterious water. In the Middle Ages, a new legend was born about a child's love for his parents, which was transmitted to the heavens, and the water turned into sake. In modern times, the waterfall and its surrounding area were developed as a park, and now attracts about one million tourists a year.
This is a park blessed with nature that has been developed around Yoro Falls. The park has historic temples and shrines such as Yoro Shrine and Yoro Temple, as well as the Site of Reversible Destiny-Yoro created by Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins. Yoro Falls, the symbol of the park, has a drop of 32 meters and a width of 4 meters, and there is a legend that drinking the water will rejuvenate you or that the water will turn into sake.
Once upon a time, there lived a poor father and son near a waterfall. One day, when the son went to the mountain to get firewood, he slipped on a stone. As he looked around, he saw a spring between the stones gushing out alcohol. The son gladly drew some sake into a gourd and gave it to his father to drink. When the empress heard this story, she was so impressed that the gods of heaven and earth praised his son's filial piety, and she appointed him as an official and changed the era name to Yoro.
"Zobisan burial mounds" is a collective name for 70 tombs distributed from the summit to the foot of Zobi Mountain (140 meters above sea level), located in the northeast of Yoro Town.It is the oldest tomb complex in the Tokai region, where burial of influential people began in the middle of the 2nd century, and a special plaza was set up in the center of the complex. It is a very well-preserved and valuable site that preserves the landscape of about 1,800 years ago.
The Seino region, where Yoro Town is located, is located at the nexus of the religious forces that represented the Middle Ages, such as the Hieizan, Hakusan, and Ise faiths. Among them, there is a tradition that seven temples called "Tagishichibo" existed especially in the area from the Yoro Mountains to the Nangu Mountain. The sites of these temples are clustered in the mountains, and five of them, Ryusenji, Seishiji, Kashiwaodera, Yoroji, and Komyoji, are in Yoro Town.
The ruins of a pagoda, a golden hall, and a tomb area still remain on the site, telling the story of the prosperity of Buddhism in Yoro Town during the Middle Ages.
The Takada Festival is one of the most popular festivals in Yoro Town, and is held every year on the third Saturday and Sunday of May to worship the fire god of Atago Shrine and to pray for disaster prevention in the town.
The festival is accompanied by three gorgeous Hikiyama floats. Each of the three floats has its own unique style of performance: Shojo-yama in Nishimachi performs a twirling performance based on the theme of a hermit who loves to drink, Rinwasei-yama in Nakamachi and Higashimachi performs a twirling performance based on the theme of a hermit and a crane, and Kagurajishi-yama in Shimogawara-machi performs a lion dance.
The Ise Highway is one of the most important ancient roads connecting Ise and Mino along the eastern foothills of the Yoro Mountains. Yamatotakeru, a hero in Japanese mythology, last passed through it before his death, and it was also used by ancient emperors when they visited Yoro Falls. For this reason, along the road, there are still remains of the Sakurai Spring, where Yamatotakeru is said to have rested, and the ruins of the ancient emperor's lodging place.