Yudanaka - Nagano

Following the great afternoon we had in Shibu Onsen we caught the local Nagano Dentetsu Line train back to Nagano from Yudanaka Station. The Nagano Dentetsu line is a private railway line so our JR East Passes do not work on this line. One of the great things about Japan is the availability of rail travel. Many of the lines are run by private companies. It is very easy to tell the difference between different rail companies as they depart from different platforms (or tracks as they are called in Japan) and you need to go through different gates to enter them.

Yudanaka Station was about a 20-25 minute walk (probably around 2.5km) from Shibu Onsen. We managed to arrive with a few minutes before our train departed. The train was a small three carriages. Hot tip for future travel, if you sit at the front of the train you can see out the front as the driver sits above the car. We only discovered this when exiting the train at Nagano.

I was very impressed with the ease in which we were able to navigate around and find our public transport. Despite most of the writing being in Japanese it is still quite obvious what is happening.Læs mere