The Kiso Valley

Sorry for the long break.

Back in April Laurel and I took a long weekend trip to the Kiso Valley in Nagano prefecture. The valley is famous for a few well preserved post towns.  Back when people traveled by foot and horse there was a road that ran between Tokyo and Kyoto called the Nakasendo. All along the road small towns grew for people to rest along the way. Much of the road is still walkable, but most of the towns have been abandoned or evolved into modern cities where there is now a highway or train station.

We visited two of the preserved towns Tsumago and Magome. To get there we took the train to Nagiso and then walked, since the towns are off the main transportation lines (there are roads of course, just not the big ones).

This is the town of Nagiso. There isn’t much to see, but it is pretty and it is an old post town that now has a train line. We walked from here a couple of km along the Nakasendo to get to Tsumago.

The weather was perfect, which was pretty lucky for early spring. The ume (Japanese plum) trees were in bloom too.

I think this is what the Nakasendo would have looked like even way back then.

The walk was punctuated by cute traditional farm houses with very well maintained gardens.

This is the view coming into Tsumago. It was pretty busy. Many Japanese tourists come for the day. The main street is lined with shops and a couple museums and they all maintain the traditional architecture of the post town.

The biggest attraction in town is the Wakihonjin, which was the second best inn in town. The Honjin was the best inn in town used for traveling dignitaries. The Wakihonjin was less important than the Honjin as it was just used if the Honjin was full. However, the Honjin in town was rebuilt in 1990s and the Wakihonjin is original and so is the biggest attraction.

Here you can see the main room of the in with the irori (fire pit) in the center. There was a hierarchy for seating around the irori.  The best seat was Dad’s where he could warm his feet on the block of wood in the pit, to the left in the picture. The worst seat went to the kids who sat next to the screen. The screen blocks the breeze so all the smoke moves in that direction. Sitting in the smoky seat with no tatami builds character.

View from the seat of honor. Laurel is sitting in the wife seat.

The irori is burned everyday and the soot keeps the cypress wood, that the building is made from, in good condition. The staff wipes down the walls everyday, but that are all pretty short so they can’t reach the whole wall. The shiny red part of the wood is wiped daily and above that is 200 years of soot.

The bath at the Wakihonjin.

Very nice sliding doors.

This is the toilet. This one is a special lacquer toilet that was installed when the emperor was stopping by. He didn’t use it and so it has never been used.

A couple more shots from the Wakihonjin.

There is a historical museum attached the to the Wakihonjin that explains the history of the village and valley. At least that is my guess as most of the info was only in Japanese. People in this area had to pay their taxes with wood. So they had standardized logs.

This is the Honjin. It is very nice, but not as interesting as the Wakihojin since it has been rebuilt.

I really loved the details above the doors.

More ume.

At around 4:00 or 5:00 the stores closed up and all the day trippers left, so town became nice and quite.

We were having fun taking pictures of the deserted town, but we didn’t realize just how far away our minshuku, Japanese style bed and breakfast, was.

Strange, but cool sights on our walk to the hotel.

We did make it to the hotel just before dark, which was good since there wasn’t much else around. We chose that particular minshuku because they have an irori and good food.

We chose that particular minshuku because they have an irori and good food.

The area is famous for this little trout like fish and for gohei mochi, below.

The food was great. For a more complete food explanation go to Laurel’s blog.

Sitting around the irori was a fun, but a little smoky experience. There’s not much to do once the sun goes down so the host of the minshuku entertains you with stories and songs.

This is a raw egg yolk on top of thin sliced mountain potato, which is really slimy. Breakfast of champions!

And of course the little fish.

Waving goodbye and hitting the road for the next town, Magome.

Crossing the border between Nagano and Gifu.

The walk between the two towns was really nice and luckily we had great weather!

Coming into Magome.

The water wheel drives this grain mill.

Making the famous gohei mochi, Magome style.

This one is ume too.

In case the town starts on fire.

Again after 5:00 everyone left and we had town to ourselves.

Yeah more ume.

The next day was a bit rainy, but I can’t complain. Next stop Narai.

This is another old post town. This one is famous for this newly built bridge.

Not a good day to be having umbrella difficulties.

This town was pretty cute, but very rainy, so I have no pictures. We did have a fantastic lunch though!