Chubu, Japan · Mountain, Town / small city
Jigokudani's 'snow monkeys' park, where Japanese macaques bathe in a natural hot spring surrounded by snow, next to the hot spring town of Shibu, with nine traditional public baths visited in yukata and geta through its cobbled lanes.
Train — Private Nagano Dentetsu line from Nagano Station to Yudanaka (one transfer at Shinshu-Nakano, ~1h17min, ¥1,660; a more direct limited express also runs, about 45min), then a bus (15 min) and a final 35-minute walk to the monkey park; an entirely private line, unrelated to JR and not covered by any pass.
Wild Japanese macaques bathing in a natural hot spring pool surrounded by snow, especially in the winter months; after the bus, a final 35-minute walk through the forest.
Inn from 1758 with four wooden storeys and registered cultural property status; its facade lit up at night is the one many people associate with 'Spirited Away', though the studio has never confirmed it.
A 1,300-year-old hot spring town with nine traditional wooden public baths scattered through its lanes; ryokan guests get a key to visit them all in yukata and geta.
The largest and highest ski area in Japan, with more than eighty linked runs on a single pass; it was an Olympic venue in 1998.
The park is open year round: in summer the macaques do not bathe but they raise their young and play along the river, and there are far fewer people. Access is a 1.6 km walk through the forest from the car park.
The ryokan gives you yukata, geta and a master key that opens the village baths: the clatter of the clogs through the alleys, past shooting galleries and old arcade machines, is half the experience.
Steamed dumplings filled with vegetables, Shinshu soba, apples from the valley and eggs boiled directly in the village hot spring.
The only inn inside the valley itself, open since 1864; it was its open-air baths that gave rise to the monkeys' habit of getting into the water.
Between mid-April and June the infants are born and the mothers carry them all over the valley: the best time to see the group's social behaviour.
Half an hour away by train: the Hokusai museum and the phoenix the painter left on a temple ceiling at the age of 89, in a town that also lives off chestnut sweets.
The village brewery, which started out as a sake brewery, is one of the country's benchmarks; in March it runs a beer festival with live music.
A UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 1980: more than forty mountain ponds, trails through birch woods and a chairlift that climbs above 2,300 metres.
The nine-bath route does not end at the ninth: you climb to the village temple to stamp the towel and ask for the 'tenth bath', the bath of enlightenment.
It was created in 1964: as the ski runs expanded, the macaques began raiding vegetable plots and farmers were calling for them to be exterminated; feeding them here brought them back to the valley. That is why feeding them is strictly prohibited.
The neighbouring hot spring town, larger and with the train station; there is a free foot bath on the platform itself.
In July the highest firefly colony in Japan lights up at Shiga Kogen, above 1,600 metres.
At night, Shibu's cobbled streets light up with lanterns and the clatter of wooden geta — one of Japan's most photogenic onsen-town atmospheres.
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