Planning our 16 day trip itinerary for Late May / Early June. 2x travellers in late 20s.
Will be in Tokyo, Kyoto for ~half the trip + Koyasan and Kumano Kodo for about 5 days. Plan to spend 3 days in Central Alps with a rental car and would like some advice for this part of the trip.
So far the plan as follows:
Day 0: arrive in Kanazawa in evening, see the old town
Day 1: pick up car rental, drive and explore the Shirakawa-Go village area, visiting Ainokura, Gokayama along the way. Overnight in one of the villages where there is still availability.
Day 2: Drive to Takayam, drive to Magome or Tsumago and do the Nakasendo with a bus return to car. Overnight in the area
Day 3: drive to matsumoto, drive to Kanazawa, leave car and take train to Kyoto in the evening.
Questions:
1. Any scenic roads, towns, villages that would broadly fit into the itinerary that I missed in the outline?
2. I know we are missing Kamikochi, but for this part of the trip we do not want to do much hiking and see nature while driving. Is this a mistake of missing an ‘absolute must see’?
3. We’re returning via matsumoto because of the castle, but will also see the Osaka castle. Is there a more scenic / interesting option to backtrack to Kanazawa or is matsumoto a must see when in alps and worth the detour?
3 comments
The castle is nice but not worth the detour. Do a daytrip to himeji instead.
You’re driving through gero onsen, which is a famous onsen town. It’s not that nice in my opinion but you could stop for a bath on the way back or something.
> Day 0: arrive in Kanazawa in evening, see the old town
If you arrive in the evening – you will see whole lot of nothing. A decent minimum for Kanazawa is a full day.
> Day 2: Drive to Takayama, drive to Magome or Tsumago and do the Nakasendo with a bus return to car. Overnight in the area
Not particularly wise plan – technically doable, but will make you run around the sights.
> Day 3: drive to matsumoto, drive to Kanazawa, leave car and take train to Kyoto in the evening.
This is 6-7 hours spent in a car, plus another 2-3 hours spent in transit depending on the location of the accommodation in Kyoto.
Q1. You have absolutely no time to deviate from this itinerary, so the question is absolutely moot.
Q2. Honest answer is that if you are already planning Kumano Kodo and Koyasan + Kansai and Tokyo in 16 days – any sane would cut out this part of the trip entirely.
Q3. There are numerous number of other options, but please do not compare monstrosity (Osaka-jo) with one of the original castles.
Despite what the other comment say, I would say that Matsumoto Castle absolutely deserved detour.
Osaka Castle, on the other hand, can be skipped.