Kiso Valley village stay

Spend a night in a charming, family-run minshuku or village inn in the picture-perfect Kiso Valley.

Deep in the Kiso Valley, in the shadow of Mount Ena and overlooking a checkerboard of rice paddies, lie the historic villages of Magome and Tsumago. These were once important postal towns on the Nakasendo samurai trail linking Matsumoto to the former capital, Kyoto. The villages are beautiful as a huge effort has been made to preserve the Edo Period ambiance. Power lines have been hidden away and cars banned from the main roads during the daytime so that the beautiful, traditional buildings and flag-stone streets can be seen in their true glory.  

Accommodation in the villages is in small, family-run minshuku. While a ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn purposely built to accommodate guests, a minshuku is a house later converted for visitors to stay in. For this reason minshuku tend to be smaller and simpler, but still live up to the famed Japanese hospitality. In Tsumago and Magome included minshuku dinners feature home cooked seasonal specialities such as rainbow trout and the odd fried grasshopper!