Tsumago (Nagiso-machi, Nagano Pref.) and Magome (Nakatsugawa City, Gifu Pref.)

The Tsumago-juku Post Town has been designated as a preservation district containing important traditional structures, and here you can find the authentic atmosphere of the rustic post roads in the Edo Period. Every year on November 23, the atmosphere of the Edo Period is reproduced by holding an historical procession through the old post town imitating an old Edo Period picture scroll, depicting the old samurai warrior class, palanquin bearers, Komuso monks (mendicant Zen priests of the Fuke sect, wearing a sedge hood and playing shakuhachi flutes), and newly married brides riding a kiso wooden horse.

Kagokaki:

Palanquin bearers (the Japanese palanquins were box-shaped shells around a seat, and strung from poles, carried by the bearers)

This is a 4 km walking course from the Nagiso-machi Station on the JR Chuo Line to the Tsumago-juku Post Town.

This is a 9 km walking course from the Nakatsugawa Station on the JR Chuo Line Line to the Magome-juku Post Town.

Located on the southernmost point of the Kiso Road, there is a ridge from which you can see the Kiso Road and the post town on a hill. Unfortunately, the town was destroyed twice, by a huge fire in 1895 and again in 1915, but through the efforts of a great writer, Toson Shimazaki, and the local residents, the town was reopened as a memorial hall, and a bustling atmosphere has returned reminiscent of olden times.

Appearing in a collection of children's stories written by Toson Shimazaki, there are many tasty local dishes that you can only find in the Tsumago-juku and Magome-juku Post Towns, like rice cakes fried on a hanging charcoal hearth with walnut-flavored soy sauce, called "Gohei-mochi," a type of sushi wrapped in fragrant magnolia tree leaves, called "Hohasushi," rice with chopped chestnuts, called "Kurikowameshi," and rustic buckwheat buns, called "Sobamanju."

Furthermore, at the Tsumago Nakatsugawa Post Town, you can enjoy chestnut cakes of a well-known brand in Japan called "Kurikinton."

Gohei-mochi:

Rice is crushed lightly, made into oval cakes and fried over a charcoal fire while brushing the cakes with miso (soybean paste) or soy sauce, a local dish of Nagano and Gifu Prefectures.