Feel like a traditional traveler as you wander a section of Nagano that once connected Tokyo to Kyoto.

The Nakasendo Trail, meaning “middle mountain way,” is one of the most famous transport routes in Japan. Formerly connecting Edo (now Tokyo) with Kyoto, along the trail are 69 rest stations to help weary travelers make their way. With a history of about 400 years, the trail snakes its way southwestward down Nagano’s Kiso Valley, which remains one of the best-preserved sections of the road today.

Narai-juku was also one of the wealthiest post towns on the Nakasendo Trail and was so heavily populated in the past that it earned the nickname “Narai of a Thousand Houses.” A couple of these former residences are still open to the public, so visitors can get a little taste of rural Nagano life in the pre-industrial era. Other houses have been converted into souvenir shops, restaurants, or minshuku (family-operated traditional bed & breakfast lodgings). There is also the Kiso Ohashi Bridge, which measures 33 meters long and stretches over the Narai River.