Last weekend, we went away for three days to Tochigi Prefecture, a mountainous region about 200 km north of Tokyo that has natural hot springs created by quiet-but-alive volcanoes. We made two stops, Friday in Nasu and Saturday in Nikko. I'll cover the visit in three posts: The volcano, the ryokan, and Nikko's temples - with lots of photos.
I planned extensively to make train and hotel connections work smoothly. This great website, Jorudan, gives you all the train options and prices, incredibly valuable in a country where trains leave precisely on schedule.
Shinkansen arrives.
Shinkansen apple juice!
An hour and 100 km later, we were in the country.
The shinkansen took us to Nasu-shiobara, from which the main road leads into the Nasu highlands. It reminded me of upstate New York: country houses, grape vines, high-end shopping and autumn leaves. We caught a bus to our first sightseeing stop, Mount Chausu (Chausu-dake), a steaming volcano that last erupted in 1963.
A 5-minute tram ride...
... takes you up to a small building where you can buy ramen and corn dogs for lunch and read amusing signs.
You can hike to the summit but we followed the near-empty trail that circumnavigates the peak. It was foggy, then clearing. It looked like the volcano had spit up massive rocks everywhere, leaving a lunar-with-plants landscape. The kids loved climbing on the rocks.
The geology was pretty cool: huge ash-gray boulders, plus seams of rust-colored (iron?) or yellowish (sulfur?) rocks.
We walked for about 75 minutes - certainly not all the way around - because we had to catch a bus down the mountain to get to the ryokan. This warning sign was posted near the tram doorway.
Next... a night at the ryokan
