Kiso Onsen Nagisoryu

Kiso Onsen Nagisoryu is a hot spring establishment in Nagiso Town, Nagano Prefecture, set in the historic Kiso Valley (Kisoji) along the Nakasen-do highway where dozens of preserved post towns once served the feudal-era travelers walking between Edo and Kyoto, with Nagiso being adjacent to the magnificently preserved Tsumago-juku, one of the finest surviving Nakasendo post towns, whose wooden merchant buildings, inns, and administrative quarter have been protected from modernization since 1968 as one of Japan's earliest historic preservation successes. The Kiso Valley's Nakasendo trail between Magome and Tsumago remains one of Japan's most celebrated scenic hiking routes, winding through cedar and cypress forests past stone-paved sections of the original highway that carry modern hikers along the same path once walked by daimyo processions, pilgrims, merchants, and literary travelers including the American Lafcadio Hearn. The sodium-bicarbonate thermal waters here warm walkers and visitors to one of Japan's most historically complete and atmospheric forest highway landscapes, where the 19th-century post town atmosphere has been preserved with exceptional care in a valley of dark cedar forests and clear mountain streams.