The lakeside is dotted with chalets modeled after "The Little Girl Heidi from the Alps" (a popular animated cartoon based on a Swiss storybook for children), Tazawa-ko Swiss-mura (the Swiss Village of Lake Tazawako), a theme park that reproduced a row of stores and houses on a Swiss street, hotels and rest houses.

The Lengend of Princess Tatsuko

In the old days, a girl with a rare beauty, called Tatsuko, desired permanent youth and beauty and prayed to the Goddess Kannon for one hundred days and one hundred nights. On the final night, the goddess told her to drink water from the spring in the north and her desire would be fulfilled. She found a spring among moss-covered stones and drank its water. The more water she drank, the thirstier she became. Before she knew it, she had turned into a dragon and went deep into the lake where she lives as its guardian sprit.