Ōtsu to Tokyo
11–30 March 2027

3nights · 15–17 Mar · all four

Eleven hundred years of capital city, taken slowly. Temples in the eastern hills at seven in the morning, when the gates are open and nobody else is up. A path beside a canal under cherry trees still a fortnight from breaking. An hour north into the hills at Ōhara, where moss gardens and small stone figures sit among cedar and the traffic simply stops. Tofu simmered at the table in the old houses by Nanzen-ji, plum blossom rather than cherry, and a covered market to graze the length of.

1. 15Mon

   Regroup

   Three of you land at 07:35 and are on a shinkansen by half ten; Pete comes up the line from the lake and meets the train at Kyoto Station at ten to one. From there the day is deliberately empty.

   Check in, bathe, and walk no further than the nearest temple gate. Dinner at half six somewhere close, and everyone horizontal by nine. Fighting the first night never works.

2. 16Tue

   The eastern hills, early

   Out at seven, when Kyoto belongs to nobody. Nanzen-ji first — the vast wooden Sanmon gate, and behind it the brick aqueduct the Meiji engineers ran straight through the temple grounds, which ought to be a desecration and somehow isn't.

   North along the Philosopher's Path beneath bare cherry trees — you are a fortnight early, so this is buds and quiet water rather than crowds and petals, which is arguably the better trade. Ginkaku-ji at the far end, then yudofu for a late lunch.

   Afternoon in the covered lanes of Nishiki market, which is the easiest grazing in Japan and where the girls can eat almost anything on the stalls.

3. 17Wed

   Ōhara

   An hour north by bus and Kyoto is gone — terraced fields, a river valley, and Sanzen-in sitting in a moss garden with small stone jizō figures half-buried under the trees, which is the image everyone takes home. Hōsen-in nearby frames a single 700-year-old pine in its window like a hung scroll.

   Back mid-afternoon. Arrange the luggage forward to Tokyo at the front desk this morning — from tomorrow you're carrying what's on your back.

Kyoto Station · JR West Kyoto vegetarian dining Map

5nights · 18–22 Mar

A steep forested valley carrying the best-preserved stretch of the Nakasendō, the highway that once ran between Kyoto and Edo. Tsumago fought to save itself in the 1960s and hides its wiring and aerials, so the street reads as it did — and it empties completely once the day coaches leave. From here the whole valley is reachable by train: Narai's unbroken kilometre of timber frontage, lacquer workshops four centuries old, a checkpoint town stacked in tiers above a gorge, and a stretch of river that has cut white granite into slabs. You arrive on foot, over the pass.

1. 18Thu

   Over the Magome pass

   Magome by half ten: a steep stone-paved street of dark timber running up the hillside, water wheels turning beside it, and the Central Alps laid out to the south. Coffee, an early lunch, and then the old road leaves the village and climbs into cedar.

   Eight kilometres, three hours at a stroll, topping out at the Magome-tōge at 801 m. There are bear bells on posts along the way which walkers ring as they pass, and for long stretches that is the only sound. The descent runs past the paired Odaki and Medaki waterfalls and drops you into Tsumago in the middle of the afternoon.

   Dinner is at six because that is when dinner is. Afterwards the street empties completely.

2. 19Fri

   The head of the valley

   Narai, about 1h 20 north by local train — the longest of the eleven post towns and the wealthiest in its day, a kilometre of unbroken timber frontage below the Torii Pass. Close to empty in late March.

   One stop short of it, Kiso-Hirasawa has made lacquerware for four hundred years and still does; the workshops along its single street will usually let you watch, and it is the one place on this trip to buy something that will outlast you.

3. 20Sat

   The valley, slowly

   Nothing to catch. Walk back up towards the pass at first light, when mist sits in the valley bottom and the cedars come out of it in layers — an hour up and an hour down, and you'll meet nobody.

   Or take the old road the other way, south past the hamlet of Otsumago and the thatched Tateba rest house, where a volunteer keeps a fire going and gives walkers tea for nothing — when someone's there, which isn't guaranteed.

   In the village itself, the Waki-honjin Okuya is the thing to see: the deputy inn, rebuilt in cypress in 1877 once the ban on its use was lifted, with a hearth room full of smoke-blackened beams and the best interior in the Kiso.

4. 21Sun

   Mid-valley and the river

   Kiso-Fukushima, 35 minutes up the line — the shogunate's checkpoint town, built in tiers above a gorge, with the barrier site above the river and Kōzen-ji's dry garden below. A working town rather than a preserved one, and it has onsen if legs need them.

   One stop further south at Agematsu, Nezame-no-toko: a stretch where the Kiso river has cut white granite into slabs and pools, named for the place a legendary fisherman is supposed to have woken from a dream. Twenty minutes' walk down from the road.

5. 22Mon

   Cypress country

   The last valley day, and the one to spend on what the Kiso actually is — a timber region before it was a tourist one. Its hinoki cypress was reserved for the shogun on pain of death, and still supplies the rebuilding of the shrines at Ise every twenty years.

   Woodcraft workshops around Nagiso and Nakatsugawa sell magemono — bentwood boxes made without nails — and several take visitors. Or walk the southern Nakasendō towards Ochiai, where the original stone paving survives in long stretches and almost nobody goes.

   Failing all of that: a day of sitting still before you move. Nobody has had one since Kyoto.

Tsumago & lodging Narai official Visit Kiso Kiso valley · JNTO Map

4nights · 23–26 Mar

Nine public bathhouses along one cobbled lane, and a wooden key that opens all of them. Guests move between them in yukata and wooden geta, and the clatter on wet stone is the sound of the place. Above the village, macaques come down off the cliffs each morning to sit in a hot pool in the snow. Below it, twenty minutes down the line, is the town where Hokusai spent his eighties painting ceilings — and beyond that, a temple that has kept a hidden Buddha and a dawn service going since the seventh century.

1. 23Tue

   Down to the cobbles

   In by late afternoon after the castle. Your inn hands over a wooden master key to the nine sotoyu, and the evening has an obvious shape: change into yukata and wooden geta, and work along the lane from one bath to the next. The clatter of geta on wet stone is the sound of the place, and by the third bath you stop feeling conspicuous.

   Tradition holds you take the ninth, the big Ō-yu, last, and finish by climbing the steps at the top of the lane to complete the circuit.

2. 24Wed

   The macaques, and then nothing

   Out early — breakfast packed the night before — on the first bus to Kanbayashi. From the car park it's 1.6 km of near-level path through cedar with the Yokoyu river running below, and in late March there should still be snow on it.

   The park opens at 08:30. The macaques come down off the cliffs to a pool built for them in the 1960s, after they took to using the hotel baths and something had to be done. They ignore visitors entirely, which is the point; an hour is plenty, and the light is better early.

   Back for lunch, and the afternoon is free — Yudanaka is ten minutes downhill, or the bath circuit is still there.

3. 25Thu

   Obuse

   Twenty minutes down the Nagano Dentetsu line, a small chestnut-growing town that would be unremarkable except that Hokusai spent his last years here, in his eighties, at the invitation of a wealthy merchant.

   The Hokusai-kan holds the late work, which is nothing like the wave everybody knows — and two festival floats whose ceilings he painted at eighty-five, with a phoenix that follows you round the room. The town is small, walkable, full of chestnut confectionery, and takes a gentle half-day.

4. 26Fri

   Zenkō-ji

   Forty-five minutes down the line, and the one thing you would otherwise pass straight through without seeing. Zenkō-ji has stood at Nagano since the seventh century and holds what is said to be the oldest Buddhist image in Japan — which nobody has seen, since it has been kept hidden for well over a thousand years.

   Two things to do there. The okaidan meguri: a pitch-dark passage beneath the main altar that you feel your way along, hand on the wall, looking for an iron key said to open paradise. And, for anyone willing to get up, the dawn service — the head priest walks the stone approach at first light and blesses pilgrims kneeling along it, which happens every single morning and has done for centuries.

   Back by early afternoon. Or don't go at all: the nine baths are still there, and this is the last quiet day before the city.

Monkey park Shibu · JNTO Access & inns Map

3nights · 27–29 Mar

The end of the old road, and one neighbourhood a day. The wooden low city around Yanaka, which outlived both the 1923 earthquake and the war. A temple town by the sea an hour south, where a bronze Buddha has sat open to the sky since the hall around it was washed away in 1498. And the palace moat at first light, several hundred cherry trees leaning out over the water. Tokyo usually opens around 24 March and peaks near the end of it, so the timing should be right.

1. 27Sat

   The low city

   In by early afternoon with the bags already at the hotel. Start where Tokyo is least like itself: Yanaka, north-east of Ueno, one of the few districts to survive both the 1923 earthquake and the war. Wooden shopfronts, a cemetery avenue of old cherry trees, and the steps down into Yanaka Ginza at the hour when the light comes straight along them.

   Nezu shrine is ten minutes away, with its tunnel of small vermilion gates, and it's a short walk on to Ueno if anyone wants the full national spectacle of blue tarpaulins and office parties under the trees.

2. 28Sun

   Out of town

   Kamakura, an hour south: the bronze Great Buddha sitting open to the sky since the hall around it was washed away by a tsunami in 1498, Hasedera's hillside gardens looking over the bay, and a beach at the end of it. The Enoden line rattles between houses and sea like a tram that got ambitious.

   Enough countryside in it to not feel like a city day, which is the point of putting it here. The clocks go forward in the UK today, so from now the difference is eight hours, not nine.

3. 29Mon

   Blossom, then home

   Chidorigafuchi at first light, before the boats go out — the old palace moat with several hundred cherry trees leaning over the water on both banks. Saved for the last morning deliberately: it's the date most likely to catch full bloom, and it costs nothing but getting up. Kitanomaru and the East Gardens are next door if anyone wants to keep walking.

   Then a depachika — the food hall in a department store basement — for presents that aren't tat, and repack properly rather than at midnight. Dinner near the hotel, nothing ambitious, and the car booked for 05:30.

Tokyo Station Map