Tsukechi Gorge

The Tsukechi river runs off the Kiso mountains over a granite bed, and where it cuts through the gorge the water is a green so saturated that photographs of it are routinely assumed to be edited. The riverbed is visible the whole way down.

Three places are worth stopping. Semebashi and Hontanibashi are bridges looking up and down the gorge, and Fudo Park has a walking circuit past Fudo Falls with maples over it. There are 125 free parking spaces across the three — a hundred at Fudo Park, ten at Hontanibashi, fifteen at Semebashi. It is about fifty minutes from Nakatsugawa IC up Route 257, and the colour peaks in the first half of November. By bus it is fifty minutes and then a walk of an hour or more, so this is a driving destination.