An open-air bath under the Northern Alps

Where the loop slows down: a scatter of hot-spring hamlets at the foot of the high peaks, and the one night you plan the rest of the trip around.

The Okuhida onsen villages — five of them, strung along a mountain valley — are the quiet centre of this route. The draw is the rotenburo, open-air baths set so you soak looking straight up at the ridgeline. After a couple of city days and a mountain town, an evening here is the trip’s exhale.

Choosing a ryokan

Pick for the bath and the meal. A good Okuhida ryokan gives you a kaiseki dinner of mountain vegetables, river fish, and Hida beef, then a soak before bed and another before breakfast. Many have both indoor and open-air baths; some offer private ones you can reserve. Half-board (dinner and breakfast included) is the norm and worth taking.

The ropeway morning

The Shinhotaka Ropeway climbs to an observation deck high in the Northern Alps. On a clear morning — go early, before cloud builds — the panorama of three-thousand-metre peaks is the scenic high point of the whole loop, and a fine thing to do on the way out before the train toward Kanazawa. Pack a warm layer; the top is markedly cooler than the valley.

From the onsen, the route heads down and across to Kanazawa to close the loop — or, run in reverse, this is roughly the midpoint. Either way, see getting around for how the connections fit together.