Central_Honshu

Culturally rich and geographically diverse, central Honshu is a vast land area stretching from the Pacific Ocean in the south to the Sea of Japan in the north. If this region is Japan’s beating heart, the Tokaido line which runs along the southern coast is the country’s transportation artery. It is above all a functional rail line – perhaps the most functional in the world, transporting thousands of passengers every day between the business and industrial hubs of Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka.

But it would be a great shame to restrict your travel by rail only to the Tokaido shinkansen. Much of the area along the Tokaido line is heavily built up and polluted by factories and heavy industry so, in its own way, a journey along this line offers a real taste of Japan; concrete proof that nature has indeed been spectacularly sacrificed for the industrial revolution. For many visitors who only just have the time to rush between Tokyo and Kyoto, this is all they see of the country. But just a short distance from the industrialized southern coast lie the majestic Japanese Alps. The easiest way of reaching the region and the Alps is to take a shinkansen from Tokyo to Nagano. The Central Japan rail network is fast, efficient and even in the winter months of heavy snowfall almost invariably on time.

Highlights of a tour around this region include Takayama, a mini-Kyoto in the mountains, the preserved Edo-period ‘post towns’ of Narai and Tsumago, and Kanazawa, a city on the Japan Sea coast which is home to one of Japan’s most celebrated gardens. Finally, between April and November, the Tateyama-Kurobe Alpine Route offers a unique opportunity to appreciate the region’s astonishing beauty in a day-long journey from the Japan Sea coast to the Japanese Alps, involving as it does a variety of modes of transport.

A one-week tour would be enough to see a couple of the highlights; two or three weeks would give you time to take in the views and explore more of what the region has to offer.