We have two full days (Friday and Saturday) in Nagano in late October as part of a bigger three week trip. Hiking the Togakushi shrines is at the top of the list for one day with a trip to Matsumoto on the other day. We’ll have a car so have a lot of flexibility around timing.
Does anyone have any experience visiting Togakushi on the weekend in fall and how busy it might be compared to a weekday? My baseline expectation is that everywhere will be insanely busy on the weekend and I’m thinking we should do Matsumoto on Friday when it’s quieter and Togakushi on the Saturday. Except… I’m a nerdy photography person and I’m hoping to hike the shrines and forest when it’s quietest so I can faff about with my camera without pissing off hundreds of other visitors. We can go at 6am, but if weekends at Togakushi are crazy busy maybe we should do it on the Friday.
If you made it this far thanks for reading this sprawling brain dump of miscellaneous trip details.
1 comment
Note that while Matsumoto-jo is busier on weekends, it’s not an autumn foliage destination by itself and Togakushi shrines are. So my advice would be to do Togakushi shrines on Friday and catch a morning train to Matsumoto, probably after visiting Zenko-ji (which is very zen before 8am).