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Thanks for the incredibly detailed replies, everyone. We still have a good amount of time to plan. We’re hoping to do this next summer, and if that works out, to begin booking the trip around the new year. Given that Japan has been closed for quite a while, we want to prepare for pent-up demand.

The trip would ideally be two-ish weeks.

We would definitely do most of our travel via rail and would order our rail passes before leaving. And we would also probably arrange an itinerary like the one OE suggests—a mix of cities and smaller, quieter towns and villages. JFV’s suggestion regarding hotels in Tokyo makes sense, although we’d definitely want to stay in a ryokan or two elsewhere.

Nara and the Akihibara neighborhood were already on my radar, and my daughter deeply wants to visit Harajuku. Matsumoto, Kobe, and the Shimokitazawa neighborhood were NOT on my radar and sound amazing.

Always happy to help.

Regarding Enframed's point about Italian food in Tokyo, I did eat at one incredible place serving just that, but it was also early 2000 and at the invite of a Japanese family. Can't remember the name for the life of me but the pizza was really similar to what you'd find in Naples.

More relevant, if you end up in Matsumoto, Mr. Goblin, I can recommend an excellent one-man country-French place. Assuming it's still there post-pandemic. It rocked in 2018. Food was obsessively detailed yet unfussy, relatively inexpensive, and ridiculously good.

Matsumoto is also famous for soba, raw horsemeat, wild boar w/onions (inoshishi), and a type of trout that you can also eat raw. If you're driving (or have the patience for a slower train), the Kiso Valley is a short hop from there, and this area has some lovely wooden touristy villages (Tsumago, Magome) and not-so-touristy ones (Nagiso, Tadachi, Narai). You can spend a night or two in that area. Ryokan accommodations galore around here. Mountain vegetables (sansai) and gohei mochi (grilled ricecake w/ semi-savory five-flavor sauce) on the table. From there, it's a short ride to Nagoya, where you can change to the shinkansen (bullet train) and move onward to Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe most conveniently.

Dbl post. Discard.