Kiso, which flourished as a post town along the Nakasendo Highway, still retains the appearance of those days and is an area where visitors can enjoy a casual stroll through history. The townscape, which is in harmony with nature, is popular among both Japanese and foreign tourists.
The Kiso area offers tourist attractions such as Tsumago Inn, Mt. Ontake, and Kaida Kogen Plateau, tourist events such as OSJ Ontake Sky Race, Kiso Music Festival, and Ontake Super Triathlon, and local delicacies such as horse meat dishes and soba noodles.
Kiso is famous for its rich nature and inn towns. Kiso flourished as an inn town along the Nakasendo Highway, and some of these inn towns still remain today, with Tsumago Inn being particularly famous. The harmony of nature and the old-fashioned inn towns with beautiful cherry blossoms, hydrangeas, fresh greenery, and blue skies will make you feel as if you have time-traveled back to the Edo period. Visitors can also hike around the inn town and enjoy nature, seeing waterfalls, mountain passes, and water mills along the way.
Local cuisine is also available. In particular, buckwheat noodles, produced by taking advantage of the difference in temperature during the summer, are highly reputed for their rich flavor and sweetness. Also, while Nagano is famous for its pickled nozawana, here in the Kiso area, there is a pickle made from turnip stems called "sunki," which is fermented without salt using only lactic acid bacteria. It is attracting attention as a healthy food unique to this area.
Tsumagojuku was the 42nd stop on the Nakasendo Highway connecting Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto (Kyoto Prefecture).Tsumagojuku was the first inn in Japan to preserve the townscape, and the rows of Edo period houses that remain along the road offer a taste of the atmosphere of that era.The town was selected as one of the first sites in Japan to be included in the Important Preservation Districts for Groups...»
Ontake is a 3,067-meter-high volcano, the second highest independent mountain in Japan after Mt. Ontake can be enjoyed throughout the four seasons for hiking, mountain climbing, and winter sports.It is selected as one of the 100 most famous mountains in Japan, one of the 100 most famous mountains in New Japan, and one of the 100 most famous mountains for flowers. It has a characteristic trapezoi...»
Katsudon with a special sauce made with carefully selected "local foodstuff from Komagane." Katsudon usually referrers nikatsu with eggs, but this katsudon is flavored with a sauce and is known as the origin of katsudon. It is said to be invented by a student of Waseda high school, Keijiro Nakanishi and his friends, and it was served for students at cafeterias then, and was spread nationwide....»
Matsukawacho is located in the northern end of Shimoinagun.Fruit cultivation of apples and pears flourishes, and the Black pork grown with the local apples and plums is slightly sweet and thus very tasty! "Goboton don" was born using the Black pork together with burdocks which is another local delicacy of Matsukawacho. There are quite many restaurants of Chinese cuisines, kappo (Japanese) cuisines...»
"Sakura don" is a local delicacy of Iijimacho using high-grade sakura meat (horsemeat) made for everybody to become familiar with it. High-grade horsemeat is called "sakuraniku" because of its cherry pink color. Horsemeat is eaten on a daily basis in France, and is very popular for women as well since it is as low in calories as chicken breasts, but contains glycogen and high in good quality anima...»
Hoba-meshi, Hoba-kowameshi, Hoba-musubi, Hoba-sushi, and Hoba-maki were made at a mountain village of Kisodani and the Shimo-ina south using the sterilizing power of bokuha. A made home became little, but Hoba-maki and Hoba-mochi are handed down from generation to generation as an event food of a seasonal festival in May 5th, and production is sold the time at a snack shop in Kiso-ji....»
A nimono dish served for ceremonial occasions in Kiso area. It is made in a large pot with lots of ingredients such as saitoimo, shirataki, chickens, carrots, daikon, mushrooms, etc. flavored with soy sauce....»
Tame sushi with the char of ingredients the inside in a mountain. It develops as a New Year's dish and an event food. I take internal organs of char (Other river fish are also fine.), stuff salt soup stock and vinegared rice in 1 month before which is pickled and eaten with many salt, put a stack arrangement weight in the barrel and ferment. It's handed down from generation to generation only at a...»