Nagasaki or Kurokawa Onsen area???
 

We are staying in Kagoshima for two days (and in Sakurajima) and were debating whether to head over to Nagasaki or to the Kurokawa onsen area instead to just relax. We hear that nagasaki is a beautiful city but we will be seeing cities in Honshu and were thinking whether we should take advantage of nature on kyushu and go to Kurokawa instead. Thoughts?

Last year we went to Kurokowa and stayed at Sanga Ryokan.We had our own stone bath which was great. The ryokan is very pretty, dark polished wood & very rustic. We had evening meals in our room & breakfast in a communal room. The food was beautifully served and very Japanese, if I can say that, in the sense of no concessions to foreign tastes. Sanga ryokan is a bit out of the centre of Kurokowa - we had hired a car in Fukuoka to get here. Getting to Kurokawa may not be so easy if you don't have your own transport as I think there are only a few buses a day - but on the other hand Japanese transport if so efficient that it will be do-able. We really enjoyed our stay here and also visited Takachiho - this has a big gorge and is very pretty http://www.jref.com/practical/takachiho.shtml
I would have loved to have stayed to see these "plays" but we worried about getting back by car in the dark and also would have not got back in time for the dinner served at the ryokan - but I think they look fascinating.
Mt Aso area is a very large desolate looking landscape - interesting but for not too long! Although if you are there at the right time there are fire festivals in the area (that I have only read about) that sound wonderful too.
http://www.worldeventsguide.com/event.ehtml?o=1632
http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/indepth/hi...5_fes_aso.html

Sorry I have not been to Nagasaki & so cannot compare the two.

Nagasaki is a nice place to visit for a couple of days. It is a small city. It has an interesting history having been open to foreign trade earlier than most of Japan. It has Dutch, Chinese, Korean, etc. influences.

With the bay and some hills/mountains it is an attractive city but not beautiful like Rio. Take a boat ride on the bay, a ropeway to the top of a mountain for views (was totally in clouds when I went there, unfortunately).

The A-bomb museum is quite moving. There are a few other sites worth seeing. It has a streetcar system that is easy to use to get around.

On your other threads when you were considering a place to chill out after arriving in Japan I thought that I might recommend Nagasaki. It's not hyper like Tokyo. Only thing was that I didn't think that there were any flights from Narita to there.

I believe there is a ferry from Kumamoto to Shimabara, then bus and train to Nagasaki.

I spent a couple of nights at the Holiday Inn and then one night at Sakamoto-ya, a 112-year old traditional ryokan right in the city.

Oooh, now I am interested in heading to Nagasaki!!!! I wonder if there is an easy way to get from Nagasaki to Kurokawa onsen . . .

Not really. Not compared to Kumamoto city. Isn't Kurokawa in Kumamoto prefecture?

I figured we could do Kurokawa or Nagasaki but not both as Kurokawa is in Kumamoto prefecture. I found a way to get there using public transportation and then I figure we'd head towards Hiroshima after that and then skip Nagasaki. Oh well.