My girlfriend and I will be in Japan for 21 days starting October 27th. I’ve been to Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto before twice, but my girlfriend has only been to Tokyo for one night.
My general questions are around Nagano/Toyama/Gifu. I have Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka sorted, but I’m really not sure about part of the first part of our trip. Advice/experiences would be greatly appreciated.
Good to know: We love the outdoors (hiking) and taking it somewhat slower than others. We’re long-term, semi-budget travelers (right now our avg per night is around $60 USD total). We’re rolling the dice on some fall foliage along the way, that’s why I’ve decided to do more “northern” first.
Questions:
* Am I doing Nagano/Matsumoto right? More/less time?
* I picked Bessho-Onsen because we want a quiet, chill, nice place to be and just walk around. More nature/small town but some things to do/see. Is it too chill?
* I see a lot of things about Takayama/Kanazawa, should we skip Bessho-Onsen? Is there a better place to spend 3 nights and relax? I figured we’d just want to get to Tokyo fairly easily but another hour or so wouldn’t matter too much.
3 nights – Nagano: Land in Haneda 1pm take a train straight to Nagano. Staying in Nagano proper and plan to check out the Togakushi shrines one day, the other day we will see what we want to do, probably check out Nagano and maybe another area near.
2 nights – Matsumoto: Go to Matsumoto and see the castle, next full day rent electric bikes and go to the Daio Wasabi Farm. MAYBE got to Kamikochi, but we’ll see. Might be too much
1 night – Kiso Valley: Train down to Kiso Valley, walk from Magome to Tsumago, and stay at a guesthouse around there for the night.
(???) 3 nights – Bessho-Onsen: Really not sure about this. Is it too small? We could check out Ueda, but I don’t know if it will be the best use of 3 nights for us.
4 comments
> Bessho Onsen
Three nights is far too much. Generally speaking, little onsen towns like this only require a couple hours to fully explore (so evening / next morning), even two nights is already becoming a stretch for things to do during the day. I would definitely shift the extra two nights to Kanazawa or Toyama (the latter is meh as a city but a good base for day trips for example to Kurobe Gorge).
> Nagano/Matsumoto
I prefer Matsumoto to Nagano, I would swap the number of nights. This also gives you more flexibility to do a Kamikochi day trip.
> Kiso Valley
As someone who hates changing hotels, I would simply do a day trip from Matsumoto. But YMMV.
Look into the alpine route that goes between tateyama and nagano. Also kurobe gorge
I stayed at Bessho and I LOVED it. If you haven’t booked your ryokan yet I recommend Tamaya, the perks were lovely and the staff was super great. It’s also right across the road from the O-yu. That said, 3 nights is A LOT. We only stayed one night, and it was enough, but 2 would be the most I could handle. It’s super quiet and laid-back, there’s some great cafes and noodle shops that close fairly early in the day but only one izakaya if you need a drink late at night. Dude who runs it is ace, though, great guy.
Do recommend Ueda for side-trips or otherwise. Very quick blip down the shinkansen line from Nagano, I only went specifically to see the castle ruins and pay respects at the Sanada shrine but there are lots of cute little shopping neighborhoods that have applied a hipster vibe over historical significance. Lots of antiquing opportunities and tasty-looking cafes. If I had the chance to live in Japan, I would live in Ueda, because it’s small-town enough for my tastes. Since it’s also your start/end point for visiting Bessho, you can combine the two if you need. Nagano was our pause in a lengthy country-wide tour, we stayed there extra so we could have some down-time and do laundry, and it does make a good hub for day-tripping. So if you keep your extra nights there, or spread them to Matsumoto, either way, you can day-trip some interesting sites and tiny towns without much hassle. But I would agree that 2 nights is the max you would want to spend in Bessho, and that would mean planning to actually see all the temples or make the full bath tour twice. Most people really don’t want or need that from an onsen, but if you genuinely want to be somewhere quiet and rural for a long time, then by all means, it’s perfect for that.
I think 2 nights at Nagano should be enough. I found the city a bit bland and it’s more a base for day trips, so if you only have Togakushi planned (which I would recommend) then you should put another night elsewhere.