D1 - Maguse onsen and Nozawa onsen

Route: Iiyama - Maguse onsen - Nozawa onsen
Bicycle: 39 km
Train: 270 km
Total ascent: 899 m
Average speed: 11,9 km/h
Riding time: 2:55 h
Weather: finally not hot. Maybe around 26C and cloudy

Maguse onsen is one of the best onsen I have been to: An onsen with a great unobstructed (!) view of the landscape around. 

I have been to my fair share of onsen, including in the mountains, but more often than not even when theoretically they are in a beautiful landscape, you can’t actually see it while chilling in the bath as it is obstructed for privacy. Here they built the onsen on the hill in such a way that it is not visible from the street, so you get to enjoy this view while relaxing in the hot water. Paradise in onsen. 

Obviously taking pictures was prohibited, but I had a short time where I was the only guest and quickly took a few pictures. Before a group of Japanese elderly women and foreign young women arrived. They seemed to work in hotels in the area and used their day off for a trip to an onsen. 

I didn’t really have a specific plan for this weekend. I had reserved a room in “my” hotel in Nozawa onsen hoping for a bit of cool weather. And I wasn’t disappointed. First night sleeping with a duvet since several months. In Tokyo it was so hot this summer tgat I have given in to the temptation of air conditioning and even slept some nights with the a/c on. So sleeping under a duvet (even if only partially) was very refreshing. 

Due to lack of planning I didn’t have a reserved seat in the Shinkansen and even managed to somehow buy the wrong ticket and it took me an eternity to correct it. So while I should have been with 30 min + at Tokyo station to line up for the unreserved seat, I just made it in time to the platform and somehow squeezed into a full Shinkansen with bike and everything standing all my way to Iiyama. So when I arrived I assembled the bike calmly and then made a plan and saw nice pictures of an onsen at the station: Maguse onsen. So there I went. 

After the relaxing bath it was downhill, as that onsen is on a different mountain slope than Nozawa onsen , and then up again. 

I still remember the first time I came to this hotel in Nozawa onsen. I had booked it without checking the terrain. And it’s above the village at the bottom of the ski slopes. I remeber that the ride up to Nozawa onsen seemed endless. But not so today. It helps to have risen a certain route already and to know at which point one is nearly up.