Nagano Shi Travel Guide

The Togakushi Folk Museum is not a single building but one ticket covering three attractions in the 'ninja village' beside the Okusha shrine approach: the folk museum, the Togakushi-ryu ninpo museum and the ninja trick house. The folk museum is a relocated Edo-period granary holding nearly 2,000 everyday objects from mountain life, farming tools, straw rain capes, charcoal-burning and sericulture gear, with a watermill hut outside; it supplies the domestic half of a district otherwise defined by Shugendo lodging temples. Next door, the ninpo museum shows some 500 ninja implements, shuriken and caltrops among them, with 200 explanatory and technique panels linking Togakushi-ryu to the mountain cult. The liveliest part is the trick house, where you hunt for hidden doors, reversing stairs and a maze to get from room to room, an old-fashioned escape game with a shuriken range and a climbing wall for children. Togakushi has long been both a Shugendo training ground and a home of ninja lore, and the solemn cedar avenue to the Okusha shrine makes the contrast sharp: step out of the trees and you are suddenly invited to throw a star blade. The site runs from late April to mid-November and closes for the snow season; the bus stops at Okusha Iriguchi, so walk the avenue first and come back to the museums afterwards.

The former Higuchi residence in Matsushiro is a preserved residence of a high-ranking samurai, a municipally designated cultural property. The Higuchi family lived here from 1765; the thatched main hall measures 14.5 by 7.26 metres and is joined by a kura storehouse and a nagaya gate, with a pond in the garden and what was once a 2,100-square-metre kitchen garden now replanted as bamboo. Restored and opened in 2010, it is run by the Sanada Treasures Museum in the old Matsushiro castle town.

Tenkyuji is a Soto-sect temple on the Zenkoji plain in Nagano, its name drawn from the 'stable office' (tenkyu) lore and tied to Zenkoji's thousand-year pilgrimage culture. Old trees and stone towers dot the quiet grounds; the hondo and bell tower keep the plain, modest air of a temple-town. A rest along the Zenkoji approach, where the warmth of Nagano's Buddhist thread still lingers.

The Matsushiro Fumibu School was the domain academy of Matsushiro (Shinano), in the old town of Nagano — one of Japan's few intact early-modern schools. Its lecture hall, training dojo and garden survive in clear plan; the curriculum blended Confucian studies, arithmetic and martial arts, embodying the samurai 'soul' ideal. Walking the grounds, you can almost see young retainers drilling both brush and sword.