Voyage Junkie

On December 26th, in a flurry of snow, we boarded a train for Nagano Prefecture.  What can we say?  We were hit by longing for mountains - real mountains - and couldn't resist.  On a whim, we found lodging in Nagano City for a few nights, bought waterproof boots, and embarked on the nori-hodai  trip. It was actually much snowier in Gifu and Nagoya than it was in the mountains of Nagano prefecture.  This was welcome news, because if it had been very snowy we might have had to cancel our trip.  The lightly frosted mountains were lovely, rising into clouds of fog that obscured their true heights. One of my students, upon finding out I love visiting the castles, told me that I absolutely had to visit Matsumoto Castle.  The city of Matsumoto is on the way to Nagano city, so we made visiting it our first day's itinerary.  The city itself is clean, bright, and prosperous, with many interesting museums we intend to visit in the near future.  It...