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Nagano sits in a mountain basin surrounded by the Japanese Alps, and it is best known abroad for two things: the 1998 Winter Olympics, and the macaques that sit in a hot spring with snow on their heads. Both are real draws. The city itself grew up around a temple that predates almost everything else in the region.
It works as a base for the Alps, the ski fields and a set of day trips that are among the most distinctive in the country.
Zenkoji was founded in the seventh century and holds what is said to be the first Buddhist statue brought to Japan. Nobody has seen it in centuries, since it is a hidden image, and a replica is shown once every six years.
The temple is unusually inclusive, predating the split of Japanese Buddhism into sects and welcoming all of them, including women at a time when many temples did not. Beneath the main hall runs a pitch-dark underground passage where visitors feel along the wall for a key said to grant enlightenment.
The morning service at dawn is open to anyone, and the head priest blesses those kneeling along the approach on the way in.
Jigokudani Monkey Park, about an hour from the city, is where Japanese macaques bathe in a hot spring surrounded by snow. They are wild, habituated but not tame, and the park exists because they started using the bath on their own.
Getting there involves a bus and then a walk of around thirty minutes through forest, which is worth knowing in advance because people arrive in unsuitable shoes. Winter is the classic time, though the monkeys are present all year and simply look less picturesque without the snow.
A practical note on the monkey park. The walk in is around 1.6 kilometres on an unpaved forest path, and in winter it is packed snow and ice. Proper footwear matters, and the park sells simple crampons at the entrance for anyone who arrives unprepared. Allow around three hours door to door from Nagano station including the bus.
Hakuba hosted several Olympic events and has the largest concentration of ski terrain in the region. Nozawa Onsen combines skiing with a traditional hot spring village and thirteen free public bath houses. Shiga Kogen is the largest single resort area in Japan.
Outside winter, the Kamikochi valley is one of the finest alpine walking areas in the country, open from mid April to mid November and closed to private cars.
Nagano hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics and the infrastructure that came with it is still in use. The prefecture has more ski resorts than anywhere else in Japan.
Hakuba Valley is the largest, ten linked resorts across one lift pass, with the most vertical and the strongest international scene. Happo-One was the Olympic downhill venue. Nozawa Onsen combines good terrain with a genuine hot spring village at the base, including thirteen free public bath houses maintained by residents. Shiga Kogen is the largest single interconnected area in the country, with eighteen resorts on one ticket.
Myoko Kogen, just over the prefecture border, gets enormous snowfall and is quieter. Season runs December to early April, with January and February the most reliable.
If you are skiing, stay at the resort rather than in the city, since the daily bus adds up. If you are sightseeing, Nagano city around the station and the approach to Zenkoji is the practical base.
The shukubo, temple lodgings, along the Zenkoji approach are the distinctive option. You sleep in temple accommodation, eat vegetarian shojin ryori and can join the dawn service, which is the real reason to do it.
Kamikochi is the finest alpine valley in Japan and closed to private cars, which keeps it as it should be. Open mid April to mid November, it sits at around 1,500 metres with the Hotaka range rising over 3,000 metres above.
The valley floor walk from Taisho Pond past Kappa Bridge to Myojin Pond is flat, well made and takes two to three hours return. Serious hikers use it as the trailhead for Yari and Hotaka. Day trips are possible from Nagano or Matsumoto, though staying a night in the valley is far better.
The Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route, crossing the mountains to Toyama by a chain of cable cars, buses and a ropeway, is the other major draw. The snow corridor in spring, where the road is cut through walls of snow up to twenty metres high, runs from mid April.
Winter for skiing and for the snow monkeys at their most photogenic. Late spring for the Alpine Route snow corridor and for Kamikochi opening. Summer is cool and clear at altitude while the rest of Japan swelters, and is the best hiking season. Autumn colour moves down the mountains through October.
Fifty minutes south by train, and home to one of the twelve original castle keeps, black-walled and set against the Alps. It is among the oldest surviving castles in Japan and considerably more atmospheric than the concrete reconstructions elsewhere.
The town also has a preserved merchant street, a strong craft tradition and the Matsumoto City Museum of Art, which holds a substantial Yayoi Kusama collection since she was born here.
Nagano is soba country. The climate suits buckwheat better than rice, and Togakushi soba, from the mountain village north of the city, is among the three most respected varieties in Japan. It is served cold on a woven bamboo tray, in bundles, with dipping broth.
Oyaki are the local dumpling, a wheat or buckwheat casing around vegetables, pickled greens or sweet bean, either steamed or grilled over a hearth. They are sold along the Zenkoji approach and make good walking food.
The prefecture is also a major producer of apples, wasabi, at the large Daio farm near Matsumoto, and increasingly wine, with a growing cluster of vineyards around the Chikuma river valley. Sake breweries here work with cold mountain water and there are more of them in Nagano than in any prefecture except Niigata.
An hour north of the city by bus, and worth the trip. Togakushi Shrine is spread across five sites on the mountainside, and the approach to the upper shrine runs two kilometres through an avenue of cedars, many of them over 400 years old. It is one of the more atmospheric walks in the country, particularly in mist or snow.
The area is also historically associated with ninja, and there is a small museum and a genuinely difficult puzzle house that children enjoy considerably more than their parents.
The Hokuriku Shinkansen reaches Nagano from Tokyo in around 80 to 100 minutes. Buses run from the station to Jigokudani and the ski resorts, and the Shinano limited express connects south to Matsumoto and on to Nagoya.
Worth adding for anyone planning the trip: Nagano city and the ski resorts run on different rhythms. If you are combining Zenkoji, the monkeys and Matsumoto, two days from the city works well. If you are skiing, most people go straight to the resort and treat the city as a transit point, which is reasonable but means missing a temple that predates almost everything else in the region.
Two days covers Zenkoji, the snow monkeys and Matsumoto. Longer if you are skiing, in which case most people base themselves at the resort rather than in the city.
They are at Jigokudani all year. Snow on the ground, which is what most people picture, means roughly December to March.
A bus from Nagano station, then a walk of about thirty minutes through forest. Wear proper shoes, particularly in winter.
Around 80 to 100 minutes on the Hokuriku Shinkansen.
Yes. It is one of only twelve original keeps left in Japan, and the black walls against the Alps are striking. Fifty minutes from Nagano.
No. Kamikochi and the alpine valleys are outstanding from late spring to autumn, and Zenkoji is year round.
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