Most things to do in Nagano involve going up. The prefecture sits across the Japanese Alps, which is why it hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics, and almost every place worth visiting is a valley, a ridge or a hot spring somewhere in between. Nagano City itself is only about ninety minutes from Tokyo by Shinkansen, so the mountains arrive faster than most people expect.
Jigokudani Monkey Park is the reason many visitors come. Wild Japanese macaques sit in a hot spring pool in the valley floor, entirely unbothered by the people watching them, and they do it because the water is warm and they worked out the rest themselves. The walk in from the car park runs about thirty minutes through cedar forest on a narrow path. In winter it is snow-packed and beautiful, and the monkeys look their best with frost on their fur, which is also when the queues are longest.
Zenko-ji, in the city, is older than almost everything around it. Founded in the seventh century, it holds a Buddhist statue said to be the first ever brought to Japan, which nobody has been permitted to see for centuries. Under the main hall runs a pitch dark passage where visitors feel along the wall for a metal key said to grant salvation. It is completely lightless, and much stranger than it sounds on paper.
Matsumoto Castle, an hour south, is one of only twelve original keeps left standing in Japan and the only black one, with steep interior stairs that were designed to be difficult. Kamikochi, further into the mountains, is an alpine valley of clear river water and birch that opens from mid April to mid November and closes under snow the rest of the year.
Nagano also eats differently. Soba here is a point of local pride, especially around Togakushi, and oyaki, a stuffed dumpling steamed or grilled, is the thing to buy from a roadside stall.
Things to do in Nagano are spread across a wide prefecture, so pick two or three and travel between them properly. Jigokudani and its snow monkeys sit north east near Yudanaka, while Zenko-ji and the cedar avenue at Togakushi are close to Nagano City itself. Matsumoto Castle and Kamikochi lie an hour or more south. Winter adds Hakuba and Nozawa Onsen.
Most things to do in Nagano involve going up. The prefecture sits across the Japanese Alps, which is why it hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics, and almost every place worth visiting is a valley, a ridge or a hot spring somewhere in between. Nagano City itself is only about ninety minutes from Tokyo by Shinkansen, so the mountains arrive faster than most people expect.
Jigokudani Monkey Park is the reason many visitors come. Wild Japanese macaques sit in a hot spring pool in the valley floor, entirely unbothered by the people watching them, and they do it because the water is warm and they worked out the rest themselves. The walk in from the car park runs about thirty minutes through cedar forest on a narrow path. In winter it is snow-packed and beautiful, and the monkeys look their best with frost on their fur, which is also when the queues are longest.
Zenko-ji, in the city, is older than almost everything around it. Founded in the seventh century, it holds a Buddhist statue said to be the first ever brought to Japan, which nobody has been permitted to see for centuries. Under the main hall runs a pitch dark passage where visitors feel along the wall for a metal key said to grant salvation. It is completely lightless, and much stranger than it sounds on paper.
Matsumoto Castle, an hour south, is one of only twelve original keeps left standing in Japan and the only black one, with steep interior stairs that were designed to be difficult. Kamikochi, further into the mountains, is an alpine valley of clear river water and birch that opens from mid April to mid November and closes under snow the rest of the year.
Nagano also eats differently. Soba here is a point of local pride, especially around Togakushi, and oyaki, a stuffed dumpling steamed or grilled, is the thing to buy from a roadside stall.
Things to do in Nagano are spread across a wide prefecture, so pick two or three and travel between them properly. Jigokudani and its snow monkeys sit north east near Yudanaka, while Zenko-ji and the cedar avenue at Togakushi are close to Nagano City itself. Matsumoto Castle and Kamikochi lie an hour or more south. Winter adds Hakuba and Nozawa Onsen.
