- famous hike between Magome and Tsumago
- walk in both towns
Shimosagaya Minsuku - booked through http://www.japaneseguesthouses.com/
8715 per person - Breakfast and Dinner included
- found the place very expensive for what they offered - the food wasn't that great compared to other Minsuku we've stayed at and the owners were not friendly at all - or maybe they just didn't speak English very well and avoided any type of conversation with us.
Tips:
- stay in Magome if you can - it is much much nicer than Tsumago
- take your time and do the hike between the 2 towns
- good place to buy interesting souvenirs at reasonable prices
Took the train from Matsumoto straight to Nagiso station - and then finally got to tsumago - barely caught the bus from Nagiso station. Got there early in the morning so the town was nice and quiet… took us a while to find the minshuku but with the help of a local we were able to find it. Left the backpacks there and the we headed to the famous hike from Tsumago to Magome and return. I've read everywhere that the hike will take 3 hrs but it only took us 2hrs with breaks for photos and a beer :). Didn't find it very hard- i would say a moderate hike not too challenging but not too boring either. We've passed 3 other small villages (i am not sure even village is the proper term - a group of maybe 10 houses together in the same area) which was very interesting to see - their everyday life - most of it is farming around the house…
I found Magome to be a lot more picturesque than Tsumago and I wished we would have stayed there and not Tsumago but maybe next time- who knows?… We walked all the way down to the bus station did some shopping (they had very interesting stuff - I've noticed wooden souvenirs are their strongest point :) ) and then we stopped for lunch. I am not sure what the name of the restaurant was but i have a photo and maybe someone can translate the name for me :). The menu was pretty much the same at all restaurants in Magome (Which are not many - I've counted only 4 restaurants) set menu with trout , buckwheat noodles soup, pickles rice and a strange dessert which i did not figure out what it was (a frozen apple with something in it… ). It was not anything special but it was interesting for a change. I personally thought that was too much for me so i settled for a mushrooms buckwheat noodles soup which was very tasty :). The people in Tsumago and Magome i found them to be very cold… maybe they are sick and tired of tourists i don't know… The owners of this minshuku were also very cold- almost rude i would say - i'm comparing to the people from other places we have stayed at ( 2 other minshuku and 2 ryokan). The place itself was not too bad - the room was pretty spacious and the doors were closing properly :) i know it sounds weird but most doors don't close properly- some at all :). I found it interesting the fact that they don' close doors when they leave the house… during the day - i am not sure about night time… The food was nothing special -trout, rice, pickles, soup, buckwheat noodles salad (something new) and …. fried crickets - yes you read it well - fried crispy sweet crickets. There were a bunch of them on the plate but i've only ate 3 of them to see how they are - enough for me to realize that i don't like them - could pass the fact that they were crickets… The taste was not too bad- actually they were crunchy and tasted very sweet from the sauce - very common sauce that unfortunately i don't know the name of it…
