Last night in Tokyo
 

Most years, April 1st will be neither the beginning nor the end of cherry blossom season. As far as hotels go, there are some in nearly every corner of the city. That area has the Hotel Monterrey and the Diamond Hotel, Tokyo Green Palace and a dozen more, but really, I have no idea of your budget, comfort level or even how many others in your group, if any, so there is not much useful info to give. Try one of the booking engines like Booking.com or Hotels.com etc and plug in Chiyoda-ku to see what appeals to you. You can easily take a 10 minute subway to go around the Imperial Palace and get to Tokyo Stn - from there you can take the Narita Express, or the 1000 yen bus, etc according to your desires.

Seeing both Kyushu or Shikoku instead of Takayama is one possibility, but it depends on what you want - do you already have some ideas of what you'd like to see and do there? Fukuoka is only an hour or so by bullet train from Hiroshima, so access is not a big issue. Shikoku has some sights as well, particularly in Kagawa and Ehime, but if going by public transportation it is a lot more inconvenient. Plus then there is the question of how you are getting around for the rest of your plans, and how much time you are spending there. Are you using a 7 or 14 day JR Rail Pass? You could also spend more time in the Chugoku Region - there are tons of underappreciated gems there. I went to some good places in Takayama as well, though all in all I found it overhyped and extremely overrun by day tripping tourists. It was also a total ghost town at night. As for weather, the mountains will be cooler of course but the vibrant greens of spring still come later than the cherry blossom season. Otherwise, weather is not really different - still rainy if rainy elsewhere, and still sunny if sunny elsewhere too.

Thank you HappyTrvir, our daughter spent 2 weeks in Takayama a few years ago and it was her favorite place in Japan. She was with her 2 children and home schooling them on the trip so life was very domestic for their stay in September. I have some concerns about the weather in March (cold) as well as wondering if there is enough there forms to do in three days. Our itinerary looks like this: Tokyo 6 nights, Nara 1 night (for Omizutori), Kyoto 6 nights in a machiya in Higashiyama, 2 nights Koyasan, 2 nights Miyajima, 4 nights Kanazawa, 3 nights Takayama and the last 2 nights in Tokyo with hope of seeing Sakura. The trip is March 6-April1.

Addasra 2200, I am looking at these hotels for our last 2 nights in Tokyo's well as our first 6 nights: Mitsui Garden Ginza-gochome, Century Southern Tower, Blossom Hibiya, and Mitsui Garden Hotel Roppongi Tokyo Premier ( the neighborhood looks inviting and the opening in January has a good price as of now).


My concerns with Takayama have led me to follow your suggestions and look into areas of Western Honshu: Matsue for the castle, Yuushien Garden and Adachi Museum. Tsuwano for smaller town experience. Izuo Taisho. Okayama for the Kibi Plain Bicycle Rouite, Korakuen Garden. Naoshima Art Island. Although Kanazawa and the Japanese Alps were high on our list, we are obviously going at the wrong time of year for getting into the mountains and now thinking that a fall trip at another time might be better.

So if we eliminated Kanazawa and Takayama on this trip, we would have 7 days to explore the above with maybe a better chance for warmer weather and more to see and do. I did not put much in the way of explaining us as travelers but would describe us as slow travelers. We find we don't jump out of bed and into our itinerary first thing in the morning. Being in our early 70's we are still very active but enjoy the slower times more than we have previously. We generally take trips that are 3 weeks to 3 months long. We enjoy walking, hiking, cycling, museums and cultural events. (all. sounds a lot like most Fodorites!). We will be purchasing JR passes and have used their calculator and find that will save us quite a few dollars.

Any information or suggestions on the pros and cons of this decision would be appreciated and any particular tips on exploring the San'in/San"yo areas also appreciated.

Thank you