Getting There

There is no Shinkansen to Takayama. That single fact, more than anything else, decides how you make this trip. The […]

The same Edo-era post-station chain as the Nakasendo walking guide, but treated as a drive: Narai, Yabuhara, Kiso-Fukushima, Agematsu, Tsumago, Magome, with the Akasawa hinoki forest and Mt Ontake side-trips that public transport doesnt reach.

Murodo handles around one million visitors a year, and the headline is a wall of compacted snow up to 20m tall. The full Tateyama-Kurobe Alpine Route guide: nine transit stages, when to come, how to book, and what each major stop is actually like.

There are four ways into the Japan Alps from outside the region — the Hokuriku Shinkansen to Toyama, the Azusa Limited Express to Matsumoto, the Hida Limited Express to Takayama via Nagoya, and the Nohi Bus from Kanazawa. This is the route-by-route breakdown with current times, prices, the inter-city connections inside the loop, and which JR Pass actually pays off.