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This weekend we went to Nagano. It was my first time in this prefecture. Its in the center of Japan, and very mountainous and cold in winter. Being colder than where I live in Shizuoka the Autumn leaves were already at their peak in early November. Suwa is a large lake on a plain surrounded by mountains. Its also a city which is huddled next to the lake, with a train line through it, many hot springs and sake breweries. We were actually taking a trip to Matsumoto, which is further to the north, but we stopped at Suwa on Saturday morning and again on Sunday afternoon on the way back home. Near to the lake are quite a lot of things to see. We first went to a temple called Choenji, located between Suwa and Fujimi town. The leaves were fantastic here.

After that we drove up to a viewpoint at Tateishi Park. The night view from here was made famous in the anime movie Your Name. There were a lot of people here even though we went in the daytime.

After the park, we went to Takashima castle, a little castle near the shore of the lake. The castle garden and the castle exterior is well worth a visit, if you're in the vicinity. Its a small castle, but pretty at this time of year. Its three hundred yen to go in the castle itself but is not really worth it, except for the view.

Being near the lake, we went for a little walk along the shore by the Geyser Center. Unfortunately the geyser is pretty sickly now, but we went and had a foot hot spring nearby anyway. There's a cycle path being built around the lake and on a warm and sunny day it would be a great way to spend a few hours checking out the sites along the water.

Just before the mountains closed in again around us on our way up to Matsumoto, we stopped at one more park, Izuhaya park, on the outskirts of Suwa. The colours here were vivid and the autumn sun was a deep yellow. The leaves were blowing slightly in the breeze and someof them were falling to the ground to join many others.

The next day, on our way back home, we stopped off in Suwa once more. There are four shrines dotted around the lake all called Suwa Taisha. We went to get shrine stamps from them and while we were still in Nagano, we went to a soba noodle restaurant, soba being famous in this prefecture. The restaurant was called Wakaba and the portions of soba and tempura were huge and very tasty.

Here are a few pictures of the shrines in the rain also.

I would not have gone to many of these places if I had realised that Suwa is an onsen town. I think the better visiting option is to go there by train, its about 2 hours 30 minutes from Tokyo station, and then stay in a hot spring hotel and go round the center of the city trying all the different sake on offer. Of course, I'm glad I saw all of the other things here, but I will definitely come back here if I can some day for the hot water and alcohol.

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