My favorite city (so far) — Nagano

Of the various cities we visited during week 2, Nagano was my favorite. It is one of the top two places we want to go back to the next time we come to Japan. (We haven’t finished our summer here and already we are planning our return! The other place we want to come back to are the Kerama Islands, these remote, teeny islands off Okinawa, which will be the subject of another post)

Nagano was the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics, but it has a total Japanese vibe today. There is some English, but it is not as pronounced as other cities, so there are various parts of Nagano that feel much more Japanese and less cosmopolitan than other cities.

Of course, since this is Japan, we love it almost anywhere and there were lovely other cities and train rides in the west coast/Alps regions, including a scenic coastal train ride, and a nice couple of days in Kanazawa, but I still liked Nagano a lot more.

Pocket parks along the main drag. Really wide sidewalks. A gorgeous temple.

Nice city surrounded by alpine mountains, with great views even from the local bus stop.

We also found a couple of places for the kids to hang out with other kids as well.

Nagano is known for lots of snow, rain and cold and I do recognize that we had one of the 50 days or so a year of sunshine, but I enjoyed Nagano even with the variable weather. It had various layers/facets to it. Besides the parks, views, temples and Japanese vibe, it had some unexpected finds as well. Like a quirky restaurant/bar with like a zillion clocks on the walls that kept the girls entertained while we had some pub food.

On our way to this clock pub (named Indian Spice) we also found a precious, and quite upscale, liquor store that carried this excellent, yet heretofore only found at Total Wine in Pasadena, tequila:

Yes, indeed, we really liked Nagano. We plan to return here and stay longer than 3 days in a future trip. Nagano was also our first of a few nights in traditional Japanese hotel room, a Ryokan, which the girls at first found very odd, but got used to sleeping on the ground on tatami pretty quickly.

Nagano was a definite winner!