Whenever my wife tells me to go take a hike I happily oblige. She said it again last Friday at dinner and by daybreak I was on a train heading into central Japan's Kiso Valley.
The Magome-Tsumago stretch of the old Nakasendo trade route is a well-known and well-trodden trail - and for good reason. Magome and Tsumago are two of the best-preserved Edo Era trade route towns in all of Japan, and are connected by a pleasant (albeit hilly) 7-kilometer walk that takes you through forests and fields and rustic villages that can - and have been - settings for numerous novels and films about the Japan of yesteryear.
I'd walked this section of the Nakasendo several times, as a guide and on my own. But I'd never gone in winter. And I'd never ventured south of Magome or north of Tsumago. The original Nakasendo, the mountainous route between Kyoto and Edo, covered more than 500 kilometers. Tsumago and Magome were just two of 69 post towns where merchants, travelers, and nobility on their way to see the shogun would eat and sleep and trade.
I've no mind to walk the entire route. (I'd cycle it if not for all the stairs.) But I did want to see more of it. In short, that's how I ended up here:
