Toyama and the Alpine Route
I left Kanazawa yesterday morning with plenty of time to do the 15 minute walk to the station. It was raining but I felt fine with my umbrella. Then about 5 minutes from the station I realized I’d left all my toiletries back at the hotel. I thought about just leaving them, but ended up running back to the hotel and grabbing them. That’s the 2nd time I’ve left something behind this trip, so I’ll have to be extra careful this week. I ended up taking my first taxi ride of the trip back to the station. It was, of course, pristine.
The train to Toyama was only about 30 minutes, and I practically had the whole car to myself.
I had chosen Toyama kind of on a whim, and it turned out to be a delightful surprise. It’s a holiday weekend in Japan, and most of the places I was looking at for Sunday night were already booked or very expensive. Toyama seemed like a good stopover on my way to Takayama, and there were lots of reasonably priced rooms available. I only found out after I booked that it was on the New York Times “52 places to visit in 2025” and I can see why. It’s a great little city, and I would have been happy to stay longer and explore it more.
I knew this weekend was going to be kind of rainy, so I decided to do this day trip called the Tateyama-Kurobe Alpine Route. From what I could tell, it was a 3-hour or so scenic tour through the mountains and then (I thought) you could just take the express route back. After dropping my suitcase off at the hotel, I went to pick up my ticket and realized I had actually set myself up for a full 7+ hours of trains, cable cars, buses and air trams there and back. I could have shortened the trip by turning back earlier in the route, but the ticket lady assured me it was worth it to go all the way to the Kurobe Dam. And it was!
The first part of the trip was a local train from Toyama to Tateyama. This time it was easy to get a seat and take in the scenery.
From there, we took a cable car to start the climb up Mt. Tateyama at about a 24 degree incline.
Then we transferred to the Highland bus, which takes you all the way to Murodo, at the top of the Mountain. There was lots of beautiful fall colors along the way, although apparently this area’s peak season for the leaves changing is mid-October.
The higher we climbed, the more we started to see snow.
Little did I know! 😆. Luckily I had plenty of warm clothes with me.
Murodo was busy with people and stormy. I tried to walk out onto the overlook, but thought better of it after watching others struggle 🤪.
From Murodo, we took a 10-minute electric bus trip through a tunnel in the mountain.
And then, we rode the Tateyama Ropeway across a valley. Each of these stops had about a 10-minute transfer time. It felt like an episode of the Amazing Race, with everyone rushing to get in line and get a good viewpoint. I got right to the front of the Ropeway car ☺️.
The last part of the route is another cable car, this time underground. It takes you to Kurobe station, and from there it’s just a 5 minute walk to the dam. Cold, rainy and magnificent!
I warmed myself up with some miso soup and hot chocolate, then turned around and headed back to Toyama, following the exact same route, this time in snow and rain. Not as scenic but now that I knew where I was going it was a little more relaxed.
Everywhere I went I met nice people. It was mostly Japanese tourists, a lot of teenagers traveling in small groups. We all recognized each other on the way back and laughed about how cold we got.
That night I went to my first Izikaya since coming to Japan. The restaurant I picked up, Kuromoji, had more of a modern/fusion type menu. They brew their own beer and liquors, I tried the gin and tonic and it was delicious.
The food was amazing too. I made friends with this couple sitting next to me. We had to rely on our phones to translate most of our conversation. They were so sweet and everyone was so curious why I had come to Toyama.
What a great discovery. I would definitely recommend that people coming to Japan check out this area and stay in Toyama specifically. I would love to come back.