Iida / Magome

Chubu, Japan · Town / small city, Mountain

Iida, a quiet city in southern Nagano known for its apples and Tenryu River cruises, serves as the gateway to Magome, the Nakasendo post town where the road's most famous walk begins: 8km of forest and farmland to neighbouring Tsumago.

The essentials

Getting there

Bus — Long-distance highway bus from Nagoya's Meitetsu Bus Center to Iida, about 2h15-2h25min, ¥2,900 (roughly hourly departures); the JR Iida Line exists but makes a huge detour via Toyohashi (over 4 hours), so in practice no one uses it from Nagoya. There's no direct bus onward to Magome — it's reached by car or taxi via Route 256, about 40-50 minutes.

Frequently asked questions about Iida / Magome

What to do in Iida / Magome: 23 activities

• Nakasendo walk from Magome to Tsumago 3 h must-see

  The most famous stretch of the old Nakasendo road between Edo and Kyoto: 8km of forest and farmland between the post towns of Magome and Tsumago, with an independent luggage-forwarding service so you can walk hands-free.

• A night in a house in Tsumago 14 h booking

  The buses leave at five and the village goes dark but for the lanterns: staying the night in one of its houses changes the visit completely.

• Imada puppet company 2 h

  Iida is the Japanese capital of puppet theatre: this company has been running since 1704 and has its own theatre beside a shrine, with three puppeteers moving each figure in full view of the audience.

• The starry sky of Achi 3 h booking

  The Ministry of the Environment named this village the place with the most beautiful night sky in Japan; a gondola runs at night up to a mountain viewpoint for stargazing.

• The Tsumago charter 1.5 h

  Tsumago was the first protected historic ensemble in Japan: in 1971 the residents signed a pledge not to sell, not to rent out and not to destroy any house. During the day cars are kept off the main street and the cables run underground.

• The yakiniku culture of Iida 2 h

  Iida has more grill restaurants per inhabitant than any other Japanese city: mutton, offal and local beef, and even butchers who rent out the grill to take home.

• Gohei-mochi, otaguri and sweets of the valley 1 h

  Grilled rice balls with sweet miso served in pairs, a stew of horse offal and a confectionery tradition that grew up around tea.

• Hirugami Onsen 2 h

  Alkaline waters known as 'the bath of beauty', in the same Achi valley: the natural base for the night of stars.

• Honjin and Waki-honjin of Tsumago 1.5 h

  The two official inns of the road: where the feudal lords slept and where their retinue slept. The secondary one preserves the original 19th-century building and is an important cultural property.

• Iida puppet festival 4 h only late July or early August

  Every August since 1979, the largest puppet festival in Japan fills the city with hundreds of performances in squares, schools and temples.

• Mizuhiki cord workshop 1.5 h booking

  Iida produces around 70 percent of Japan's mizuhiki paper cord, the kind tied on ceremonial envelopes; there are workshops where you can learn the knots.

• Nakasendo luggage transfer service 0.5 h

  From spring to autumn you can leave your suitcase at one end of the trail in the morning and pick it up at the other on arrival: it makes the walk far more comfortable.

• O-Tsumago and the stretch to Nagiso 3 h

  The continuation of the Nakasendo beyond Tsumago, with practically nobody on it, passing the twin waterfalls of Odaki and Medaki.

• Seven men, a wooden tub and a rain of sparks at Nanakuri 3 h Yamamoto, Iida · 30 min only one Saturday in late September or early October

  It is billed as a naked festival and is worth describing properly, because it is not what that suggests and it resembles none of the other fire festivals. At Nanakuri Shrine, from seven to half past nine at night, seven young men - one for each hamlet of the district, chosen from among the locals - swing a wooden tub above their heads while a rain of sparks falls on them from a firework rigged high on a central pole. They carry no torches: none of the seven sources consulted mentions any, and the fire comes from above, not from their hands. And as for nakedness, only just: local sources specify that they wear a thick sacred straw rope tied round the waist. The tub, one of them says, weighs fifteen to twenty kilos. The date follows a rule and the rule holds: a Saturday in late September or early October, the 27th of September in 2025 and the 3rd of October in 2026. It is said to have begun in the Nanboku-cho period to console Prince Muneyoshi, though the sources say so with an it is said and only one ventures a figure of seven hundred years. The seven come from the district itself, so what is on offer to a visitor is watching. You come by bus from Iida station in about twenty minutes plus ten on foot, but the sources disagree on the stop and none says whether the bus is still running at half past nine, so the way back has to be settled beforehand. No source consulted gives a heritage designation, a price, attendance figures or what happens if it rains.

• Shimoguri no Sato, the Japanese Tyrol 3 h

  Hamlets and terraces clinging to thirty-degree slopes at 1,000 metres; it is called the Japanese Tyrol and it is still inhabited and farmed.

• Tenryu River boat cruise 1 h

  A roughly 30-minute descent through the Tenryu River's rapids, with different scenery by season; in winter, some boats have heated kotatsu tables.

• The Iida Line and Tenryukyo gorge 3 h

  An extremely slow railway between cliffs, famous among enthusiasts for its 'inaccessible stations', which no road reaches and where nobody lives.

• Apple picking in Iida 1.5 h

  Between September and November, orchards near the city centre let you pick and taste apples with no time limit; Iida is one of Nagano's best-known apple-growing areas.

• Iida municipal museum and planetarium 2 h

  Puppet heads, fossils and a planetarium, and next door the memorial house of Yanagita Kunio, the father of Japanese folklore studies.

• Kawamoto Kihachiro Museum 1.5 h

  Two hundred puppets by the Japanese master of stop-motion animation, donated by him to the city.

• Motozenko-ji temple 1 h

  A 1,400-year-old temple that held the original Zenko-ji image before it was moved to Nagano; it has its own pitch-dark passage and tradition says visiting it counts as half a pilgrimage.

• Shimotsuki Matsuri, the fire rite 4 h only several days in December, depending on the village

  A night rite more than 800 years old with masks and boiling water over the fire, designated an intangible cultural property; it is held in December in mountain hamlets that are hard to reach.

• The apple tree street 1 h

  A street in the centre planted with apple trees that schoolchildren themselves have tended since 1953, with the fruit hanging over the pavement in autumn.

What only happens on specific dates

• Iida puppet festival late July or early August
• Seven men, a wooden tub and a rain of sparks at Nanakuri one Saturday in late September or early October
• Shimotsuki Matsuri, the fire rite several days in December, depending on the village

Chains well with

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