Karuizawa: Tokyo's 'Shire' escape

by Jessica Ocheltree

Unlike most heavily sold tourist spots in Japan, Karuizawa genuinely offers a hefty helping of nature.

As the sticky Japanese summer heat stretches into July, Tokyoites long to escape to cooler climes.

True, there are few if any Hobbits inhabiting the area, but a world-class weekend refuge just about an hour away from Tokyo in the mountains of Nagano Prefecture is no fantasy.

Overheated urbanites

Located on the eastern edge of the prefecture, Karuizawa was once a busy post station on the Nakasendo, a highway linking Tokyo and Kyoto. After the Meiji Restoration, however, that traffic was diverted and the town began to fall into decline.

It was ?rescued? in 1886 by the arrival of missionary Alexander Croft Shaw, who was, supposedly, reminded of his ancestral home in Scotland and built a summer residence there.

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