The plan for today was to go on a walk from Magome to Tsumago, it was a 6 hour round trip. After reading all the other blogs we decided that although it was something we really wanted to do before arriving in Japan we'd already seen loads of traditional houses in Kanazawa, Shirakawa-go, Hida and Takyama so we would give it a miss.
Here's the schedule as we'd already worked it out we wanted to share it incase anyone wants to go!
Travel times
09:24 - 10:39 Nagoya to Nakatsugawa
11:15 - 11:40 Nakatsugawa to Magome
2:09 - 2:18 Tsumago to Nagisa or
2:22 - 2:50 Tsumago to Magome
2:42 - 3:14 Nagisa to Nakatsugawa or
2:50 - 3:15 Magone to Nakatsugawa
3:20 - 4:35 Nakatsugawa to Nagoya
5:01 - 5:35 Nagoya to Kyoto
The weather forecast was for rain so we decided to spend the day in Nagoya. First we visited Nayago Castle & Palace for ¥500 each (£3.50) but we couldn't go into the castle as it's being renovated, instead we went into the Palace which was re-built in 2018! The building hasn't weathered yet and it looks a little strange. The interior has been carefully designed to match the images/photos/drawings of 400 years ago and these decorations are outstanding but at the minute they are digital copies which they plan to replace with originals in 10 years time!
We then made our way down to the science museum passing the oldest TV & radio tower in Japan. Unfortunately the park/walk in the middle of the road was closed as was the tower so we couldn't go up to the viewing decks. However the modern bus station has a viewing platform which is where we took this picture from, it was pretty wet and slippery up there but it's a really cool structure!
The science museum itself is really interactive although nothing is in English it's a good option for a rainy day. The planetarium was good but again it was all in Japanese and went on for 50 mins. We both had a few cat naps but didn't start snoring like someone close by!
We then took a train to Kyoto during rush hour, the station was really busy so we thought we would book onto a train, but for some reason they could only book us on a slow train that was leaving after the next one so we thought we'd try and see how busy the non reserved coach was and there was lots of room so we went for it. Our Airbnb host had given us amazing instructions on how to get to the property by bus which was so easy. You get on at the back doors and then pay when you get off at the front. Try to have the correct change with you it's ¥230 for a single journey or you can get a day pass. The best thing is if you are unsure on the stops they are shown on a screen on the bus so there's no need to worry about missing your stop.
After checking in we did some TripAdvisor searching for food, there are so many really small independent restaurants it's hard to choose but the main thing to note is that most stop serving by 9pm. We picked a noodle place which was really good.
