Karuizawa May 2026
A beautiful Japan trip to Karuizawa, a road trip of 280 kilometers north in Nagano perfecture. We started at 8 in the morning from Hamamatsu and a long drive ahead of us as the average speeds in the mountain area is not that high. We could see mount Fujii from the car and we passed some mountains with still some snow on the tops. The roads were getting more interesting the closer we came to Karuizawa withnessed by the increase of motorcycles on the road.
We arrived in the afternoon at our house in the woods, semi-detached house outside Karuizawa. We started to explore Karuizawa, first Karuizawa shopping-street, Ginza street. A new side of Japan; the popular Kei-car was here not part of the street-scene but big diesel propelled SUV’s were. At the end of the street there was a mountain road. Google showed a nice view from the top, so we decided, despite the bear warnings, to walk the 3,5km to the top.
We could reach the top after one hour or so and unfortunately all the shops were closed in the weekend. We visited a Kumano shrine, famous for the three legged crow called Yatagarasu, the sacred messenger of the sun goddess Amaterasu.
We went to the view point close by the shrine and we could have an impressive view over the mountains.
After the breathtaking views we went the 3.5 kilometer back down, that was much easier, by now all the shops and bars in the shopping street were closed. After freshening up at the house we went to a restaurant at walking distance. We arrived at a modern restaurant called Shola, a modern exclusive restaurant. We tried Japanese red wine form this area, it was a great wine experience. The next day we went for a small drive on nice winding roads and visited the impressive Shiraito waterfalls. It takes water six years from the water falls on the mountain until it comes from the falls.
We throwed a coin for good luck and continued our trip to another waterfall, the Ryugaeshi falls. Much smaller and less touristic fall. A small walk on small roads with again some bear warning towards the fall.
After the visit to the fall our schedule became different from the plan, a running event made us make a detour and we skipped the mall and went to the Stone Chuch. We could not visit the church because of a wedding, so we took a picture and we continued our trip back to Hamamatsu.
After having been warned for bears I finally found one, a harmless one during the lunch stop…
