Matsumoto and the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route

Matsumoto

Moving from Tokyo to Matsumoto was our first experience of navigating a busy public transport system with our big bags and it went surprisingly well despite being ridiculously muggy and hot. As is standard here, the trains and buses are all incredibly well connected and run to time. One thing I found really cool is the use of a traffic light system above each train seat to indicate if it’s reserved or not - if it’s reserved, it turns yellow as you’re approaching the stop where its new inhabitant is about to hop on, thus avoiding potential inconvenience and embarrassment!

Matsumoto is a lovely small city set in a floodplain amongst foothills on the way to Mt Tateyama. Its castle is a standout. You can go inside and clamber up several floors via steeeeep steps, peering out the various holes and windows built for waging battle.

Matsumoto is also Yayoi Kusama’s hometown. Sim and I ducked out for a quick gander at her permanent exhibition at the Art Gallery. Her work is all bright colours, interesting shapes and playing with perspective. I was curious to then read a few of her statements where she comes across as a very earnest, slightly melancholic but stoic and optimistic character.

Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route

Then on to the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route, a 90km journey through and across the mountains and passed the Kurobe Dam. I loved this because it got us up close and personal with the mountains, but I also marvelled at the feats of engineering to build it all! It involved a couple of bus trips in tunnels carved right through the heart of two of the mountains, plus cable cars and a ropeway. And the dam itself is very impressive. Apparently 10 million people worked to build it.

We did it over 2 days. Day 1 was stunning views, refreshingly cool mountain breezes and even some snow up at the highest point we reached, being 2450m.

We stopped for the night partway down the other side at Midagahara (1930m), staying at an isolated hotel with excellent full catering and gorgeous views out over a Ramsar-listed wetland, which we walked around to kick off day 2.

Next we took the bus a little further down the mountain to the Bijodaira forest with beautiful 1,000 year old cedars and beech trees. We did a walk, which was a little more strenuous than it looked on paper, but we sweated our way through it like good Aussies. Aelie kindly let me use her handheld electric fan a few times!

All in all a wonderful experience!

Next stop: Kanazawa