in-all-places: Japan travel: Matsumoto and the Crow Castle

Matsumoto

We came to Matsumoto from Tsumago, the old post town on the Nakasendo route between Kyoto and Edo. Tsumago has no train station but a ten-minute drive with the hotel shuttle van brought us to Nagiso-machi where the JR Nagiso Station train station is.

We boarded in and in less than two hours we arrived in Matsumoto. It was for us just a stopover on the way to Kamikochi but a very pleasant one. As I just learned, the Japan Alps encompasses four prefectures and seven cities; one of them is Matsumoto so please put it on your list for your trip to Japan!

The train station here is not so different then the other we came up during our trip in Japan, fairly small, cosy and with good facilities: shops and eating places and coin lockers for our small bags - while the big one was waiting for us in Kamikochi thanks to Takkyubin - the fast, secure and cheap door-to-door luggage delivery services. Details about my Perfect travelling here please!

Centrally located, Matsumoto is a gateway to Kamikochi, Takayama City and Utsukushigahara Heights and it is most famous for Matsumoto-jo, one of most beautiful original castles in Japan and the main reason for couple of hours stopover.We choose to take a stroll and we reached the castle within around 15 minutes. It was a splendid sunny day and the castle is superb.Few hours later we were back at the train station; our journey further involved a small local train to Shin-shimashima and from there a local bus to Kamikochi. The train journey - probably half an hour, was easy and instructive as we could easily see the surroundings and the bust took us high up the mountains for about one hour.

Of course we took plenty of pictures - unfortunately for some unknown reason I lost the big part of them; however, here is my best selection of what was left of them!