The Nakasendo is a path which connected Kyoto and Edo (today's Tokyo) over an inland route that passed 500 kilometres (310 miles) through the centre of Japan's main island of Honshu. From Kyoto, it passed along Lake Biwa, over the mountains at Sekigahara, across the plains north of present-day Nagoya, close to the southern Japanese Alps, across the plain between Matsumoto and Karuisawa, and down to the Kanto plain which surrounds present-day Tokyo to Tokyo's predecessor, Edo.
During the Tokugawa shogunate these kinds of highways were carefully planned and constructed with stations at regular distances; providing food and lodging for travellers. Magome is the forty-third of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendo and you can still follow the old footpath between Magome and Tsumago, an 8 km long stretch through some of the most beautiful area of the Kiso Valley.
Camera: Pentax *ist DS, lens: Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC MACRO
