Nagatoro spreads its autumn along a river rather than gathering it in one spot. The peak is mid to late November, though the colouring season runs longer at both ends — the peak is the useful number, and the season is why people keep coming back. The viewpoints line a stretch of the Arakawa, close enough together to walk between.

Iwadatami — flat shelves of rock forming the riverbank — reads best from one of the boats that run the river, because from water level you look up at the bank rather than down at it. Across from it stands the cliff known as the Chichibu Sekiheki, with the trees around the shelves turning against it. The Kaneishi Suikankyo bridge gives the opposite kind of view: from the deck you can turn through the whole valley in one movement.

For height, a ropeway climbs Mount Hodo, and from up there the colour reads as an extent rather than as individual trees. Height changes the subject. Boat, bridge, mountain: three altitudes, three different autumns.

Tsuki-no-ishi Momiji Park is lit in the evening, which makes it the one place here worth walking twice, once in daylight and once after dark. Weekend crowds fill the car parks near the station first; the trains from Kumagaya and Chichibu are the easier way in. Come by rail and give it a full day. One small town, four kinds of autumn.