My first goal in Nagano Prefecture is to visit some castles. On my first full day in the prefecture I visited two: Mastushiro Castle and Ueda Castle. Both of them are reconstructions that weren’t particularly impressive, but were nice to walk around. Getting around was a bit of a nightmare as I underestimated the vastness of the urban sprawl in Nagano. I recorded just 40 km of riding, entirely through city. This picture was taken at the top of Ueda Castle looking out towards the mountain range that I will go over tomorrow to reach Matsumoto.
Day 61 – Matsumoto, Nagano
Getting to Matsumoto involved going over an 1,100 m high mountain pass, but the road I took was a very gradual incline for the most part so it felt pretty easy and I reached Matsumoto Castle by mid afternoon. I have a book in which you can collect stamps from 100 of the most famous castles in Japan, and Matsumoto Castle is the cover of the book! I had to get a picture with both the book and castle in it. Mastumoto Castle was easily the best castle of the trip so far, and one of the best castles I’ve visited in general. It is one of the few “original” castles remaining in Japan meaning that it was never destroyed and reconstructed, only renovated since it’s construction.
Day 62 – Narai-juku, Nagano
The most popular cycling route through Nagano is to follow the old Nakasendo Trail. Nakasendo roughly translates to “Inner Mountain Route”, which was originally constructed during the 1600’s as a route for communication between Edo (now Tokyo) and Kyoto. Along the route was 69 small post towns for people traversing the route to rest for the night. Most of the route has been taken over by modern roads, but some sections in Nagano and Gifu Prefectures still remain intact. A few of the post towns are preserved as they were in the Edo era when the Nakasendo first started. This picture is from one of the best preserved towns, Narai-juku.
Day 63 – Tsumago-juku, Nagano
I continued riding the Nakasendo through a bunch of gorgeous old style towns. This picture was in Tsumago-juku which was one of the best preserved. From here, I hike-a-biked along the real old Nakasendo route over Magome Pass to Magome-juku. When I say real Nakasendo, I mean I was pushing over the same steep cobblestone and dirt paths that were used in the 1600s! I eventually reached some stairs I couldn’t easily go over, so I finished the route along the modern streets.
Day 64 – Inuyama, Aichi
This day started out not great; it was rainy and I was doing urban riding on busy roads with lots of street lights. Fortunately the rain cleared up for a bit in the late afternoon just in time for my visit to Inuyama Castle, the oldest standing castle in Japan! I was surprised at how empty this castle was compared to the previous major castles I visited on this trip. I only noticed one other group of foreign tourists. After exploring the castle site for a while, I took a much needed break from the street lights and rode for about 30 km entirely on bike paths along a river.
