Yesterday, Robert and I decided to go and see
Tsumago today. During the Edo period, Tsumago was the forty-second of the sixty-nine post towns, which connected Edo (present-day Tokyo) with Kyoto.
The annual Journey to the Shogunate (De Hofreis) back when the Dutch had set up shop on Dejima also led through these post towns.
When the new central railway was completed, Tsumago fell into poverty.
About 40 years ago, it was decided that the old facade of Tsumago needed to be restored in order to return a bit of the heritage, and make it into a touristy spot in the process. :)
I must say, it's a beautiful little town, out of the way (buses run to and from Tsumago, but the parking lots are set a few hundred meters from Tsumago), so the town itself is nice and quiet.
Now, the real way to visit the area is to walk from Tadachi through Tsumago to Nagiso, but seeing as we already were kind of tired and didn't really feel like walking 20km or so, we grabbed a taxi and saved the walk for another time.
Glad that we did, by the way, als bus services are quite limited, and the moment we arrived at Nagiso, there wouldn't be another but for 90 minutes.
Due to the fact that Tsumago itself isn't very large to begin with, and that our taxi had saved us a heap of time, we decided to grab lunch back at Nagiso and hop on a train to Matsumoto, to see the castle.
Because of the elegant black roof, Matsumoto Castle is sometimes called Crow Castle. Inside the castle are steep stairs and low ceilings leading past displays of armor and weapons from the Sengoku period when the castle was built. The narrow wooden windows, once used by archers and gunmen, provide great views of the surroundings, just like in the old days.
The castle isn't as accessible as the castle of Himeji is, but it's very interesting to visit, especially when you have visitied Himeji.
Some pictures:
Now, they say that Matsumoto and Tsumago (plus surroundings) can't be done in one day, but I beg to differ. If you get to Matsumoto first and see the castle, you'll have time to do the Tsumago-walk as well; your foremost problem will be getting there, due to the countryside-like timetable the trains are running on, and the fact that you'll need to take a Local train to get to Nagiso.