Nakanojiyo, Gunma

The bus from Nakanojo Station climbs into narrowing valleys, passing stands of cedar and the occasional farmhouse before the road finds the gorge of the Shima River. This is the approach to Shima Onsen, and the mountains that press in on either side rise well past the treeline before they flatten into sky. Nakanojo-machi sits at the center of this terrain — a town where the Agatsuma River and the Shima River run their separate courses through a landscape that receives heavy snowfall in winter and holds its silence even in the warmer months.

The town carries older layers with some care. The Tomizawa family residence, a nationally designated important cultural property, was built around the Kansei era for silkworm cultivation, its distinctive front-gabled form still standing in the surrounding farmland. At the museum known as Muse, the main building is a Meiji-era Western-influenced structure — the former Agatsuma Third Elementary School — now housing exhibits on local history and folk culture. Every two years, the Nakanojo Biennale brings artists into residence across the town, including into disused school buildings, a practice that began in 2007 and has continued into its tenth edition.

Shima Onsen is the most frequented of the area's thermal springs, but Otsuka Onsen and Shiryaki Onsen draw a quieter kind of visitor — those who arrive knowing what they are looking for. The Nozori Lake, formed by a dam within the Joshin'etsu-Kogen National Park, sits at high elevation, ringed by trails. The Agatsuma Shrine at Yokoo, once under the patronage of the Sanada clan, still stands as a working parish shrine.