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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Grilled rice balls with sweet miso served in pairs, a stew of horse offal and a confectionery tradition that grew up around tea.
Alkaline waters known as 'the bath of beauty', in the same Achi valley: the natural base for the night of stars.
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.
Every August since 1979, the largest puppet festival in Japan fills the city with hundreds of performances in squares, schools and temples.
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.
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.
The continuation of the Nakasendo beyond Tsumago, with practically nobody on it, passing the twin waterfalls of Odaki and Medaki.
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.
A roughly 30-minute descent through the Tenryu River's rapids, with different scenery by season; in winter, some boats have heated kotatsu tables.
An extremely slow railway between cliffs, famous among enthusiasts for its 'inaccessible stations', which no road reaches and where nobody lives.
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.
Puppet heads, fossils and a planetarium, and next door the memorial house of Yanagita Kunio, the father of Japanese folklore studies.
Two hundred puppets by the Japanese master of stop-motion animation, donated by him to the city.
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.
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.
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.
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