Four Itchy Feet

August 10, 2025. Matsumoto, Japan. Day 4

Today we drove from Minakami, Gunma to Matsumoto, Nagano. There are several ways to get to Matsumoto: you can travel on local roads through the mountains or head south to Takasaki and then east until reaching Matsumoto. This is the route we chose, and it proved to be a very pleasant drive, even in constant rain.

The rest stops are a sight in themselves! One way to get food is to walk up to a vending machine, where you see pictures of the meals. You order by pressing the large picture button, pay for it, and the order goes to the kitchen in the back. Soon after, your meal appears at a nearby counter. We were hungry but not brave enough to try it.

The second rest stop had a restaurant, so we decided to eat there. The meal was amazing, and after picking up some sweets and coffee, we were back on the road. The highway was uncongested and paved directly east. The road architects decided not to go around any of the mountains but simply bore their way through. We must have driven through 40 tunnels, some of them 3 to 5 kilometers long. There is a price to pay for this driving comfort: the entire road required tolls, which cost approximately $35. When you rent a car in Japan, you must make sure you have the ETC card ready and inserted into a slot in the car. This way, the tolls are taken care of as you drive through the gates, and you pay the balance when you return the car.

By 3:00 pm, we arrived at the Onyado Nono Matsumoto Hotel and Onsen. After checking in, we decided to partake in our first communal onsen experience. There is much to learn, and I plan to delve deeper into it on a blog dedicated to the onsen experience, but for now, here’s what we learned: don’t be afraid to do it. At first, it will feel uncomfortable, but if you slow down and observe, just do what everyone else is doing, and you will enjoy it. It was a very relaxing experience.

We have traveled deep into the country and away from the major cities, and we find there are only a few Western tourists and English-speaking help is less frequent. Have Google Translate handy and don’t be shy to use it. If you can learn a few phrases, it would go a long way to show your hosts you are trying.

Stay tuned for more Matsumoto adventures in the upcoming days.