Toyama

The range behind this bay reaches three thousand metres, and the seabed a short distance offshore drops to around a thousand. Compressing that much vertical range into so little horizontal distance is what gives the prefecture its character: rivers arrive at the coast fast, cold and short, and the trench just off the beach holds creatures that most fishing ports in the country simply never see.

It is why the seafood here is genuinely different rather than merely good — small deep-water species that do not travel well and are eaten within sight of where they were landed. It is also why the view works in both directions on a clear winter morning: from the beach the peaks stand directly above the water with almost no foothills in between, which is an unusual thing to see anywhere and the reason a particular stretch of coast north-east of the city is worth the detour at dawn.

Two days is enough and it is an unusually dense two days, because Toyama's three attractions are strung along one line. The city is on the shinkansen, two and a bit hours from Tokyo; the Kurobe gorge railway is about an hour east; and the Tateyama alpine route starts roughly an hour south and takes most of a day to cross.

The route worth planning around is that crossing: a cable car, a bus over a mountain pass and a series of connections that carry you from Toyama through to Nagano, opening in April with a corridor of snow walls at the top and closing in November. It is a transit route as much as an attraction, which means you can arrange a trip to pass through rather than double back.

Three days lets you add the Gokayama thatched villages on the way south to Gifu — around an hour and a half by bus from Takaoka — which is the sensible way to combine two prefectures.

The sequence of cable cars, buses and a tunnel trolley over the range began life as access for a hydroelectric project, and it still behaves like infrastructure: it starts on this side of the mountains and finishes in the next prefecture. That is the single most useful thing to know about it, because it means the day is a transit leg rather than an excursion, and a trip can be planned to pass through rather than double back.

Two consequences follow. Luggage has to be sent on separately, since you are changing vehicles repeatedly and some sections have no space for it — the forwarding services exist for exactly this and should be arranged the day before. And the route runs to a season with published opening and closing dates, so anything built around it should be checked against those dates before flights are booked, not after.

The Hokuriku Shinkansen puts Toyama about two hours ten minutes from Tokyo, and Shin-Takaoka a few minutes earlier for the Gokayama and Amaharashi side. From Osaka or Kyoto it is the Thunderbird to Tsuruga and a change. Toyama Airport is close to the city. Locally the city trams and the Toyama Chiho Railway cover the plain, and the Alpine Route is a ticketed sequence of connections from Dentetsu-Toyama to Tateyama and over the mountains to Nagano — through-travel means your luggage must be forwarded separately. Kurobe Gorge is a separate line from Unazuki. Gokayama needs a bus from Shin-Takaoka or a car.

December to March, if the mountains are why you are coming: the alpine route is closed, the gorge railway is closed, and Toyama in winter is a grey Sea of Japan city with excellent seafood and not much else on the itinerary. That is a legitimate trip for the food alone but not the one most people are planning.

The snow-wall corridor at the top of the alpine route is at its most dramatic in late April and May, which is also when it is busiest and when tickets and connections should be arranged ahead. Early November is the other pinch point, as the route closes for the season on a published date that is worth checking before booking anything around it.

The Alpine Route is the fixed point: it opens in mid-April and closes at the end of November, and the snow walls at Murodo are highest from the opening into May. Book the through-passage in advance in Golden Week. Firefly squid come into the bay to spawn from March to May and are netted at night. Winter is snowy and grey, with January highs around 5°C and heavy falls inland, and the Gokayama villages light up for a night or two in the season. Summer is hot and humid in the low 30s°C, and the Kurobe Gorge railway runs from April to November. October is the clearest month for the mountains.

Firefly squid are the spring event: they glow blue in the nets from March to May and are eaten boiled with vinegared miso along Toyama Bay. White shrimp, small and sweet, are landed almost nowhere else and appear raw over rice. Buri, the winter yellowtail that comes down the coast from November, is the cold-season equivalent. Masu-zushi is pressed trout on vinegared rice sealed in bamboo leaves inside a round wooden box, sold at Toyama Station since it was invented as a portable meal for travellers.

Trains and the alpine route's own connections handle everything most people come for. Toyama is on the shinkansen, the gorge railway and the Tateyama route are self-contained ticketed journeys, and the city has a small tram network. No car required.

A car becomes worth it for the Noto-facing coast, the inland valleys and the smaller villages — and it is actively wrong for the alpine route, which is a one-way crossing where you would have to return for the vehicle. If you intend to cross to Nagano, travel light and send luggage ahead, which is a standard service here and the single most useful practical tip in the prefecture.

A first visit is the Tateyama crossing, ideally as a through-route to Nagano rather than an out-and-back. Starting at sea level in a city famous for its firefly squid and ending the day at 2,400 metres between walls of cut snow, having changed vehicles six times, is a better single day than anything else in central Japan, and it requires nothing but a ticket and the discipline to travel light.

A second visit should be the Kurobe gorge in October, when the foliage in the ravine is at its best and the open-sided train that runs through it is at its most uncomfortable and most memorable. Add Gokayama for a night in a thatched farmhouse, which is the quieter alternative to the better-known village over the Gifu border and a considerably better experience for it.