Matsumoto, Shirakawago, and Kamikochi

 We had a three day weekend over Columbus Day so decided to hit the road and visit a few places a little farther away. 

Matsumoto

Our first stop was Matsumoto Castle. It is the oldest original castle in Japan (lots of the castles in Japan have been re-built multiple times) The part of Matsumoto Castle we visited is the original built in the 1500s. 

Its a very beautiful castle and it was fun to be able to go inside. The view from the top level is awesome. I found it interesting that the stairs are so steep. (also I had not realized we would be taking off our shoes and I wore sandals - I felt really self conscious with bare feet. 

I liked our hotel, it was very nice and it had a private onsen on the top floor. The hotel provided "lounge wear" for the onsen. Dad decided not to go, but I had a lovely bath on the roof with only the sky above!

Another notable feature of the hotel was that it had one of those parking garages where you load your car into the elevator and it gets "parked" in the high rise. In the morning when you're ready to leave you give the attendant your parking ticket, they enter the number, and few minutes later the door opens and there's your car!










Shirakawa-go

This place was on Dad's bucket list - UNESCO World Heritage site. Its a beautiful old style village nestled in a mountain valley. All the houses are made with grass roofs (notice how THICK the grass is). We were able to take a tour through some of them. They don't seem very airtight - I think it would be cold in the winter. But, people actually live in some of them!

I scanned in a picture from the brochure we got that shows how they work together when they need to redo a roof. The information we read said they have to redo the roof about every 40 years.

After we left Shirakawa-go we drove to a city about 45 min away called Takayama. We spent the night here and I would like to go back someday. It was such nice city - it had some modern sections but it also had some very old sections. We walked through Old Town that was along the river. Very pretty.






















Kamikochi

Our final day was spent in Kamikochi. They don't allow people to drive into the park, so you have to park in designated areas outside the park and ride a bus. The bus only ran once each hour so you don't want to "just barely" miss it. We may have run a little to get on haha.

Inside the park we began a 10K loop hike that took us around lakes and rivers. There are some sections with no services but there are also rest spots along the way with food and gift shops.  

This was quite the trip for Dad because he checked off a second Bucket List item - seeing wild monkeys in the forest. We saw lots of them! I was somewhat leery of them - they are WILD animals. But most people got quite close to take pictures.

I think a highlight was when a group of monkeys decided to cross the river right in front of us.

I have to say, this is one of the most beautiful places I have been. Pictures just can't do it justice, but we tried.






































Comments

  1. mariaOctober 15, 2021 at 8:00 PM

    Incredible! I would be scared of the monkeys!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Suzanne OhsiekOctober 31, 2021 at 2:27 AM

      Yes, I was scared of them. I stayed way back - wild animals!

      Delete

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