Join one of our grannies in Sasahara village, a traditional farming village at 1100m in the mountains, and embark on a delicious adventure.
The locals' food culture is attuned to the cycle of the seasons with different dishes for every time of the year. And summer is a time for farming and tasty fresh vegetables. First, let's gather the ingredients for lunch! Follow our grannie outside to pick some summer veggies such as cucumbers, edamame beans, etc., in the nearby fields. Then, it's cooking time. Our grannie will share all the secrets of Yamaura traditional cuisine she inherited from her ancestors. You may prepare countryside-style rice cakes covered in savory edamame paste, colorful and refreshing agar cakes, tofu soup with hand-made miso, and much more.

Sasahara village looks as if time stilled a century ago. More than two thirds of the 90 houses which form the village are traditional farmhouses built between 100 and 200 years ago, each with their own traditional “Kura” storehouse (beautifully decorated with plaster relief paintings), pond, and Japanese garden. Sasahara, though, is not a tourist attraction but a real village brimming with life.
Have a walk around the village with a local guide who will share with you the most intimate secrets of traditional life in the mountain, take you inside some farmhouses, and introduce you to other villagers.

Yatsugatake Cycling guided tours are a great way to explore the highland area on the foothills of the Yatsugatake. Itineraries can be personalized to fit your preferences and stamina. You can ride around rice fields, and peaceful little villages or maybe go up to Lake Tateshina to check out the sculpture park. The guide will show you all the best places and, when the weather is good, you can enjoy great views of the Japanese Alps and the Yatsugatake Mountains.

Up in the mountains, at 2100m, there is a fairytale-like forest completely covered in moss which looks like it just came out of Hayao Miyazaki's anime world. Enjoy the "macro" forest of igneous rocks and gnarly trees covered by a deep-green layer, then take a closer look at the "micro" forest of moss and lichens, which most people pass by without even realizing. A local guide will accompany you on this adventure to help you unveil the secrets of this mysterious corner of the Yatsugatake Mountains.

Even if you have never heard of kanten, there is a good chance you have eaten it at least once during your stay in Japan. Kanten is, in fact, a key ingredient to many typical Japanese confectioneries. If there is something jelly-like in your traditional sweet, that is most likely kanten.

In this tour, we will visit a local kanten farm located at an altitude of 1,000 meters and the producer will guide us through the entire production process. Kanten is produced in winter, but even outside of the production period, you can see and touch the huge kettle in which seaweed is boiled, the raw kanten that has hardened into a jelly-like substance, and the frozen product. The visit will conclude with a tasting of delicious kanten-based dishes because the best way to discover new food is by eating it.

Set off on a journey to discover the origin of Fujimori Terunobu's imaginative architecture. This is your chance to climb up the too-high teahouse, Takasugi-an, which entered the Time's “top 10 precarious buildings” and have tea inside the too-low teahouse, both of which are usually closed to the public.
Along the way, we will also visit Suwa Taisha, one of Japan's oldest shrines, and Jinchokan Moriya Historical Museum, the first work by Fujimori-sensei.