Chubu travel guide: what to see in the Japanese Alps, when to go

Japan's fourth city, Nagoya is more of a transport hub than a destination in itself. Its rebuilt castle, the Atsuta shrine and the Toyota industry museum can be seen in a day. The city is above all the starting point for trains to Takayama and Kiso, and home to Chubu Centrair airport. Local dish to try: tebasaki, grilled peppered chicken wings, miso katsu and flat kishimen noodles, quite unlike the cooking of Kanto, plus the free breakfast that comes with a morning drink at a cafe.

Between Nagoya and Matsumoto, the Kiso valley keeps several post towns of the Nakasendo road, which linked Edo to Kyoto through the mountains. The most walkable stretch runs from Magome to Tsumago, 8 km in three hours, with a luggage-forwarding service between the two villages for about 5 euros. Tsumago bans cars by day and hides its power lines: you sleep in a minshuku to enjoy the quiet after 5 p.m.

Matsumoto, at 600 m, is built around one of Japan's few original keeps, black, a national treasure, beside its moat. Nakamachi street and its whitewashed warehouses, an ukiyo-e print museum and the Utsukushigahara hot spring above town round off a day. It is also the gateway to Kamikochi and the alpine route, and a handy base for the whole region and its lakes, Suwa to the south and Aoki to the west.

Kamikochi is a glacial valley at 1,500 m, closed to private cars, reached by bus from Sawando or Hirayu. An easy walk follows the Azusa river to Myojin Pond, 90 minutes there and back; experienced hikers climb to the Yokoo hut, at the foot of the Hotaka walls. The valley is open only from mid-April to mid-November. Mountain huts must be booked, especially in summer and during the October foliage.

Takayama keeps an old town of dark wooden merchant houses, a morning market by the river and sake breweries open for tasting in winter. An hour away by bus, Shirakawa-go and its steep-thatched gassho-zukuri farmhouses are a UNESCO site; a night in one lets you stay after the coaches leave, around 4 p.m. Gokayama, further out and quieter, offers the same landscape without the crowd.

On the north-west coast, Kanazawa escaped the bombing and keeps an intact old centre. The Kenroku-en garden, one of Japan's three great gardens, is visited at opening to beat the groups. The Higashi Chaya geisha district, the Omicho market and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, closed on Mondays, fit into a day and a half. In winter, snow falls here by the metre, driven by Siberian winds.