Suzanna

The 2 of us will be for in Japan March 21- April20, 2019. Arrival and departure are to/from Narita. Since we want to reduce the number of places to stay at and rather do day trips, I have hotel reservations to date (with day trips from each location) as follows:
- 6 nights in Tokyo
- 11 nights in Kyoto
- 5 nights in Okayama
- 4 nights in Kanazawa
- 3 nights ????????????????????
- 1 night Narita (before return)
We are in our lower 70s and will not rent a car. We were told that the roads in the Alps will be probably still snowy and advised not to go there.
I considered the yet to be reserved 3 nights in Nagano, but maybe there is a more scenic, quiet, smaller and less touristy location (appropriate for the second part of April) with reasonable transportation from Kanazawa and then to Narita.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

hawaiiantraveler

stop off in Hakone for three days. You will be seeing cherry blossoms on this trip and you might in the heights of Hakone at this time. Hakone is a beautiful option at this time of year. You may get to see Mt. Fuji close up also

https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5200.html

Aloha!

mrwunrfl

I very much doubt that snow in Japan Alps is going to be any issue towards the end of your trip. The spring festival in Takayama will be April 14-15 and there will probably be buds on the cherry trees. The Alpine Route opens on the 15th. Takayama is touristy but at your timing should be good for quiet as it will be soon after the festival and on weekdays.

The same benefit of timing (mid-week = fewer tourists) should apply to Nagano, Hakone, or Fujigoko.

mrwunrfl

That is quite a long stop in Okayama. I suppose that you will base there for some day trips. Am interested in what your plan is for that time.

thursdaysd

I spent four nights in Okayama my last trip to Japan, and could have done five if I had chosen to do Kurashiki as a day trip. I did day trips to Himeji and Imbe and spent one day in Okayama itself.

Second the suggestion of Takayama and/or Matsumoto.

Suzanna

Thanks for the suggestions. I am considering a day trip during our stay in Kanazawa to Takayama (bus takes 2h 15m one way) on one the days of the festival. Takayama doesn't have accommodations during this period (at least not ones that I would stay in for multiple nights). As far as Okayama is concerned, other than spending one day there, we will go for day trips to Kurashiki, potentially to Hiroshima, maybe to Takamatsu, potentially to Naoshima or Bizen. We only have 4 days in Okayama w. the 5 nights. We will do Himeji from Kyoto. I will look at Hakone maybe instead of Nagano and I am also considering Kawaguchico. I have to check the implications to transportation from one place to the next one. I am trying to avoid trips that eat a lot of time or require complicated transfers. If I keep Nagano, then I would probably day trip to Matsumoto and Yudanaka. There are lots of nice places, but I am not trying to see "everything" and run around like a chicken without a head.

For some strange reasons, despite the fact that I checked the box to be notified instantly about any answers, I didn't receive any notifications....

kja

Sounds like a very nice, leisurely plan!

I’ll add my voice to the recommendation for Takayama – maybe if you keep checking, you’ll find a place to stay? Or, to throw out another idea – Lake Chuzenji and Nikko? They sound like they might suit your interests, if not your routing preferences.

I can easily imagine a delightful stay of that length of time in Okayama.

I trust you’ve ruled out the possibility of putting all of your time in Tokyo at the end of your trip?

Public transportation in Japan is excellent – no reason to consider a car unless you have a burning desire to go to one of the few places where it would be an advantage, and the places you mention won’t require one.

Hope that helps!

mrwunrfl

Your call, but I think it is not quite worth it to spend 4+ hours for a day trip to Takayama matsuri. The train route from Kanazawa via Toyama is a good option if you use the Ltd Express between Toyama and Takayama (said to be very scenic). You will want to get reserved seats both ways well in advance, if you take that day trip from Kanazawa. I would expect that the reserved seats on the buses and trains will sell out. There might be special tourist buses for the festival, perhaps in an overnight package. You sh/could continue to look for lodging availability during the festival. Again, it would be "quiet and less touristy" after the festival.

You have some good ideas for daytrips from Okayama.

Hiroshima would be easy: shinkansen and then a street car to the Peace Park an Museum. There is a boat that goes from near the PP to Miyajima that you could consider taking. There is also a boat between Miyajima and Ujina Port where you can get a streetcar to the station.

Getting to Takamatsu would be a big part of the fun for that day because you would travel across the Seto Ohashi bridge system. It is quite scenic, both natural beauty of the inland sea and islands and the bridge system itself. I have read about, but not visited, Kojima (denim capital of japan) on the Honshu side where there are good views. There is also a spot on the Shikoku side, The best time for making that crossing would be at sunset. It is spectacular.
https://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/...etoohashi.html

Suzanna

Thanks. Yes, I would like to keep what I have already for Tokyo, Kyoto and Okayama. I hope it all works out. Nikko is on my list of potential day trips from Tokyo, although depending on whom you ask you will hear that it is so run over that it is hard to move around.... I see the following options:

1. If I keep Kanazawa (with day trip to Takayama) and drop Nagano (3 nights), I could go from Kanazawa back for 3 nights to Tokyo and take day trips from there to Hakone or Kawaguchico, to Nikko/Lake Lake Chuzenji and maybe Yokohama or Kamakura

2. If I replace Kanazawa with Takayama (4 nights that include the festival), I would keep Nagano.
I found and reserved (but I am not sure that I will keep) a somewhat "strange" place in Takayama, the Teriyaki "Hotel". It is an apartment with relatively little info about it and no reviews on TripAdvisor. It is very expensive for what it offers (not even breakfast) and I find it hard to establish walkability from there into town (like to restaurant, supermarket, tourist attractions, etc.).
https://www.booking.com/hotel/jp/ter...age#map_closed

I will take another look at train options from Kanazawa to Takayama, on first sight it seemed that the number of trains is limited and for a day trip I would get to Takayma too late.... I didn't yet have time to look at what it means to "commute" from Tokyo to the potential destinations. I will also evaluate tours that take you there to eliminate the headache with transfers, missing connections and stress related to that. I also heard about Kojima, I have to further investigate what it means getting there.

If you are familiar with these destinations and have comments, suggestions about what's a better choice between April 12-19 as above, please let me know. Thanks.

Do you know if the website has a bug about sending notifications when someone answers? I went back and double checked, I have instant notifications set in my profile but they do not happen...

kja

I was actually suggesting 2 or 3 nights in Nikko / Lake Chuzenji. I know that many people visit Nikko as a day trip, but I wouldn't have found that enough time, and although I only spent a few hours at Lake Chuzenji, I had considered including it in my itinerary, dropping it only when I decided that other locations were a higher priority for me. It sounds to me like it might meet your criteria quite nicely.

I agree that a day trip to Takayama from Kanazawa wouldn't make much sense -- I was encouraging you to continue looking for a way to spend a few nights there. If I had to choose between Kanazawa and Takayama (and I'm glad I didn't!), I'd probably choose Kanazawa, but that reflects my interests, which could be different than yours. IMO, these two cities are VERY different from each other! Too, I don't particularly like crowds, and so I, personally, would avoid Takayama during the festival; YMMV.

I don't know what's up with the notifications, but you can post on the "Forums Help" forum.

Kavey

We did a 4 week itinerary in 2016, our third trip to Japan.

After 4 nights in Kanazawa we rented a car and drove a loop around the Noto peninsula, which was wonderful. I don't know how accessible it would be without a car.
Another option is Karuizawa, where we spent a couple of nights (we kept the car we picked up in Kanazawa and went on from Noto but it could be possible by train, I'll check). We got to Karuizawa on 12 April, it was not snowy.

PS I loved Takayama which we visited during Autumn festival in 2012, I understand it's more crowded even in the short number of years since, but for us, it was still far less crowded than Kyoto in the key tourist areas and we loved it.

mrwunrfl

That comment about Nikko, "so run over that it is hard to move around", is like what I have read, here, about Takayama. The poster thought Takayama was too touristy and crowded. But, I think she was there during the fall festival. She thought that the Saturday market was just full of cheap souvenirs a comment ,I agree with, but others enjoyed.

I've visited Takayama three times, once during the spring festival which I did enjoy, not love, and did not find to be oppressively crowded. The crowd was there to have fun, so it was good.I stayed for three nights , starting the night before the festival started. Most people left the night after the second festival day or early the next morning. When I would out, the day after the festival, everybody was gone. I decided to stay another night but my first two lodging choices were closed. But I did find a place and enjoyed the town that day when it was calm and quiet.

"Hakone or Kawaguchico, to Nikko/Lake Lake Chuzenji" - those are destinations that deserve at least a one night stay, but more would be better. Day-tripping to those places would be more like headless chicken tourism to me. But changing locations is much less of an issue for me than it apparently is for you.

An 11-night stay in Kyoto is a long one. Are you planning day trips from there too? [I realize that other fodorites can plan 5-day Okayama or 11-day Kyoto visits, but I am interested in what the OP has planned tp see what they have in mind. The Okayama visit is reasonable, no day trip to Matsue/Izumo for example.]

Suzanna

Thanks.

11 nights in Kyoto are just fine for me. As I mentioned twice, I will use 4-5 days for day trips. While I agree, many destinations would deserve days, unfortunately some of us are running out of them . We all travel differently.

kja, I am just curious, if you had to choose between Kanazawa and Takayama, why would have you picked Kanazawa?

kavey, what did you like in Karuizawa?

kja

Several reasons:

Kanazawa is a center of some great art/craft traditions, so it has some wonderful museums, lovely places where one can see the work being done, and lots of shops that felt more like galleries than stores to me. Kenrokuen is glorious, IMO, and there are some exquisite smaller gardens, including Nomura-ke and also Gyokusen-en (where I was able to experience a tea ceremony for a nominal fee). And I found Myoryuji – the so-called Ninja Temple – very interesting. Too, the Dutch influence in Kanazawa resulted in some buildings that are unique, I think, for their combination of Japanese and Dutch design elements.

But to be clear, I also really enjoyed Takayama! My favorite there was Hida-no-Sato, where I could appreciate displays of the local architecture and life style in a lovely setting. The Hida Takayama Art Museum was a close second – but even though it is a wonderful collection, I can see glass art and Macintosh elsewhere – I don’t need to travel to Japan for that. Takayama has many interesting temples and a jinya and various homes that have been preserved from olden days, but in comparison to things I saw in Kanazawa, they seemed a bit more redundant of things I had already seen elsewhere in Japan. That said, my dinner of hida beef and mountain vegetables was hard to beat!

Hope that helps!

Suzanna

Thanks for the helpful answer, kja.

mesbakh

i have never been in japan. but it is one of asian country i want to visit so much

Adastra2200

You are asking about the last 3 days of your time...actually I would say Nagano would be a very good choice. It's also on the way.
There are some other possibilities. You may be a bit on the early side and it's too early to tell, but Toyama has a killer tulip fare starting around that time. You could also spend some time on the Noto Peninsula and visit some hot springs such as the Kaga Onsen with the Natadera Temple. It is not on the typical tourist radar so not so crowded.
In Nagano there is the Takato Castle Park, and has cherry blossoms blooming well into the latter half of April. Seeing the snow monkeys at Yamanouchi is another idea, though many people go to see them. Karuizawa is also one other place along the way. Very beautiful. I hope you find something among these appealing.

Suzanna

Thanks. Based on the suggestions I have been looking at Karuizawa and at Hakone. It seems that Hakone is very nice but the trip from Kanazawa to Hakone seems to be very log and difficult, if I figured that out correctly (still trying to learn how to use Hyperdia). I am trying not to spend a lot of time travelling. Karuizawa is more "on the way" back to Narita. Maybe I'd replace Nagano with it. With so many options it is not an easy decision.

Kavey

You asked Kja which between Takayama and Kanazawa, I'll answer that question too.

For me, Takayama during festival was a wonderful experience. I also loved the extensive historical districts, very well preserved, whereas Kanazawa's two tea districts were very small and for me, not very interesting.

In Kanazawa, my favourites were Kenrokuen, which just blew me away, and I loved the food market here, I am a sucker for food markets and this remains one of my favourites in Japan. I also really enjoyed visiting a museum out by the port area called the Ono Karakuri Museum.

I'd struggle to choose between the two, in all honesty.

For me, Karuizawa was a place to relax, we stayed in a beautiful resort which offered a range of cultural activities, but the highlight there for me was an evening wildlife walk to see the giant flying squirrels, we had a few different very good sightings. I'm a wildlife geek, so this was just thrilling. It's also a good place for walkers, I think but that's not us. Oh and the Stone Church by architect Kendrick Kellogg was also a highlight.

mrwunrfl

For Kanazawa or Takayama to Hakone you can use Odawara as your destination. From Odawara you would take a bus or train (or taxi) to/through Hakone-Yumoto to get to your lodging destination. From Kanazawa there are two routes, north and south. The north route would be by shinkansen to Tokyo where you would transfer to a shinkansen or JR local to Odawara. The south route is a limited express to Maibara and then a shinkansen to Odawara. From Takayama you you go south on a l'ex to Nagoya and then a Hikari shinkansen to Odawara. From Maibara or Nagoya you want to avoid using the slower Kodama shinkansen.

That trip to Odawara would take about 4 hours but would be pretty easy. After that you will have some travel within the national park, but it is worth it if you stay a couple of nights.

Getting to Karuizawa would be easier and much shorter. The trip from there to Narita would also be easier and quicker than from Hakone, especially if you just to the shinkansen to Tokyo and transferred to the Narita Express.

If you decide to stay in Takayama during the festival then it would be a good idea to have a day before/after the festival to visit some of the sites without the festival crowd.

About that day trip to Takayama idea: yes the rail options are limited but so are the bus options. The train won't have to deal with traffic. Am not sure where to look but I imagine that there would be a coach tour from Kanazawa to the festival, maybe returning after the evening festival on the 14th.

Shirakawago is well worth a visit from Kanazawa.