Arrive into Tokyo on your scheduled flight. You will be met on arrival and transferred to your hotel directly. Enjoy an afternoon or evening orientation with our local staff who will ensure you have your tickets ready for your journey tomorrow. You can use this time to become familiar with your area and experience an evening in a local Izakaya if you feel up to it!

If you prefer to have some extra nights in Tokyo at the start, we can arrange this.

Hakuba is one of Japan’s premier ski resorts located in the stunning northern Japanese Alps. Hakuba gained its reputation when its exhilarating slopes played host to several events during the 1998 Winter Olympics. The resort’s seven distinct ski areas offer spectacular views, excellent dining and apres-ski activities, as well as plenty of beginner and intermediate runs. Hakuba offers the very best in winter sports set amongst spectacular alpine scenery with all the charm of a small Japanese mountain town.

Matsumoto is an alpine city surrounded on all sides by the towering peaks of the Japan Alps and has an almost European feel to it. The city is most famous for its original castle which is only a short distance from the station. This is one of the only original castles in Japan and really gives you a sense of ancient Japan and how the samurai used to live and fight.

After your brief visit to Matsumoto Castle you will move onto Takayama. Mountains in Japan were once believed to be the sacred dwelling places of divine spirits and the Hida, Kiso and Akaishi ranges of Mountains, known collectively as the Japan Alps rise majestically in northern Honshu. Takayama, in the heart of the Hida Mountains is a delightful town, established in the 16th century as the castle town of the Kanamori family and now famous throughout Japan for its old town area of narrow streets containing many well-preserved inns, tea houses, shops and merchants houses with the latticed windows and overhanging roofs characteristic of the Edo period. The town was also renowned throughout the Edo era (1603-1868) for the very high quality of its craftsmen and many of the temples in Kyoto were built by workers from Takayama. The town has many shrines and temples of its own giving rise to the title of ‘Little Kyoto’. Just on the outskirts of the town is the fascinating Hida folk village where old farm houses from across the Hida region have been brought together and rebuilt (beam by beam) on a hillside overlooking the town. Takayama’s morning market on the bank of the Miyagawa River is famous and well worth a visit to see the stands selling local farm produce, flowers and crafts. There are also some great micro sake breweries affording the chance to sample the wares of Takayama’s most famous product! A stay in Takayama is a chance to get a feel for a way of life that really has all but disappeared from modern Japan.

Residence of the emperor and capital of Japan from 794 to 1868, Kyoto holds extraordinary cultural and historical value. Among Kyoto’s sixteen hundred Buddhist temples and four hundred Shinto shrines are some of the most famous and important in Japan. Kinkaku-ji, the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, is a Zen Buddhist temple whose top two stories are coated entirely in gold leaf and the temple has become an iconic symbol for the city.
Exploring Kyoto’s Gion district you can’t help but be taken in by the charm of the traditional wooden merchant houses or machiya (traditional townhouses) that form the façade of the street-front. Gion is also home to many of Kyoto’s best-known ochaya or teahouses, and it is here and in the surrounding streets that many go in the hope of catching a glimpse of geisha or maiko. As part of our tour you will have the rare and amazing chance to take part in an authentic tea ceremony and walking tour of Gion with your local guide.