Tochigi Hidden Gems

Tochigi is where Tokyo goes to look at mountains, and the reason is one road. Nikko sits at the point where the Kanto plain stops and the volcanic highlands begin, and the Tokugawa chose it for Ieyasu's mausoleum precisely because it was north of the capital and defensible; the carving work at Toshogu was paid for on a scale that bankrupted lesser projects. Behind the shrines the Irohazaka switchbacks climb 500 metres in two one-way spirals to Lake Chuzenji, which sits dammed behind a lava flow with Kegon Falls draining it over a cliff. Above that again is Oku-Nikko, a marshland plateau at 1,400 metres. All of this is a single valley, which is the practical problem: everyone arrives on the same road at the same time, and in autumn the Irohazaka can back up for hours. The southern half of the prefecture is flat, warm and mostly given over to strawberries.