Walking the Nakasendō

Today, I did something I'd wanted to do for a long time. Before the Meiji Restoration brought trains to Japan, the Nakasendō was an important road. When the Meiji Restoration modernized Japan, some parts of the country got left behind, like parts of the Kiso valley which were formerly important towns on an important road. In the 1960's residents of some of these towns decided to preserve and restore their Edo-era appearance. They did, and the tourists came.

There is an 8 km. (5 miles) section of the old road between two of these towns, Magome and Tsumago, that is now a hiking trail. Magome is in Gifu prefecture and Tsumago is in Nagano prefecture. Today, I hiked that trail.

Part of it is the original stone road. I thought about the porters who got to carry people in palaquins while wearing straw sandals. Part of the trail is gravel and part of it is paved. There are a few short stretches where you have to walk on the highway.

Being Japan it is, of course, hilly. It took me 3 hours to do. It was very beautiful, with woods and the occasional waterfall. It seemed like a route a party of D&D characters would use!

I took a train to Nakatsugawa, then a bus to Magome. I hiked between Magome and Tsumago, and waited for over an hour for a bus to Nagiso, then took a train to Nagoya, then back to Okazaki. All in all, a full day!
Here is a view of the area before I got to the trail.








Here are some views along the trail.

































Here is a straw horse I saw in Tsumago. It makes sense that there would be a horse in this area -- the "Ma" in Magome means "horse"