We stayed at a lovely hotel in Kawaguchiko – the Mizno Hotel. It is across from the town itself, looking back at Mt Fuji. Scenes like this…
It is a lovely and relaxing spot – we really enjoyed our morning coffee on the deck.
Breakfast was included and it was a bang up multi course affair. There was also a dinner service at the hotel, which was a good thing as we were not convenient to the restaurants in town. Dinner on the first night was shabushabu – hot pot!
With notice we could also have a French dinner, which we did on the final night. It was amazing – multiple courses, local ingredients, French cuisine.
There was an onsen for a relaxing bath before bed, and a lovely lobby filled with pots and pots of hydrangeas.
The town itself takes a really heavy load of tourists all year round. There is lots of signage in Japanese, English and Chinese. Sadly, many of the tourists are proficient in none of those language, so tremendous patience is required on the part of the locals. Especially the bus drivers. There are fancy resorts along the shore, hostels, guest houses – every kind of accommodation that you can imagine. Every kind of food, too.
When we were figuring out how to get to Kawaguchiko we were having trouble figuring out the train options – we figured we were not searching correctly. It turns out that the train to Kawaguchiko is a private train and does not always show up as connecting to the larger JR train system. It is a commuter train, so no advance ticketing required. Tap your fare card on and then off and you are done.
The day we left we took an early train out of Kawaguchiko to Kofu. The trains we passed on the way were stuffed full of day trippers making their way up. We had a quiet easy ride down. We had thought we would have to go back to Tokyo and Tokyo Station (another train station so big and complicated that it has its own app to help you through it), but when we got to Kofu the very kind ticket agent figured out how to get us to Nagano without going all the way back to Tokyo. By 3:00 (and three trains) we were in Nagano. Another mountain city, but completely different!
Where I'm At 