Nagoya is Japan's fourth-largest city and the heart of Central Japans industraial zone. Becuase of its commercialism and industrialisation it doesn't feature highly as a tourist destination and attracts mainly business travellers.The city's central area was flattened in WW II and has been totally rebuilt. Today is the best-planned mainland city of Japan. Featured are wide boulevards laid out in an easy-to-follow grid pattern, tree-lined avenues and user-friendly parks. The city is alive with entertainment centers, shopping arcades, museums and convention facilities.

Just 21km from Kariuzawa is Nagano-ken. The eruption of Asama-yama created a seven-kilometre-wide lava flow. This area is now an extraordinary landscape of bizarre black rocks.

As the capital of Nagano-ken, Nagano is a modern. compact city some 200km northwest of Tokyo. Surrounded by fruit orchards and mountains, Nagano came to world attention as the location of the 1998 Winter Olympics. Every year around eight million pilgrims come here to pay homage at the temple of Zenko-ji, home of the legendary first image of Buddha to arrive in Japan in the sixth century. It's worth making full use of the shops and facilities before venturing into the Alps.

Nozawa Onsen is a hot spring resort that extends from the foot of Mt. Kenashi at an altitude of 1650m. The town is situated at the northern tip of Nagano Prefecture, and has long been a Mecca for the skiing in Japan. It is a great place to visit.

Beautifully located on a hillside facing Lake Iruka, Mejij Mura is currently where over sixty Meiji buildings have been brought and rebuilt. On display inside the buildings are furniture and other items of interst, objects of reference related to the respective buildings, and temporary exhibitions of historic materials as occasions call.