Wondering what to do in Nagano City? Maximize your time in Nagano with our guide to the essential attractions near Nagano Train Station. As a major stop for the Hokuriku Shinkansen, this bustling hub offers much more than just transit. The area surrounding this major Shinkansen hub has evolved from rural roots into a vibrant district filled with cultural treasures and local flavors. Our guide highlights the must-see spots around the station, including the best desserts like Soba Cheesecake and the Zenkō-ji recognized Rakugan at MIDORI Nagano, ensuring you experience the true soul of the city before heading deeper into the Japanese Alps.
The Top Things to Do Near Nagano Station
Tips:
☛ Sotetsu Fresa Inn Nagano Zenkojiguchi is a nice hotel to spend a night after a day of exploration around Nagano Station.
☛ The bakery, Kobeya Kitchen Midori Nagano, usually has a 20% off sale after 7pm (may start earlier or later).
Explore the Area Around Nagano Train Station With a Guided Tour
If you prefer to be guided around Nagano Station or join one of the interesting activities, how about joining one of the following tours?
- Food & Cultural Walking Tour around Zenkoji temple in Nagano
- Nagano Cooking Tour: Make Oyaki & Stroll Historic Streets
How to Get to JR Nagano Train Station
Below is a rough guide to how long it might take you to reach Nagano Station, assuming you are taking the bullet train and/or a limited express.
- From Tokyo to Nagano taking the Hokuriku Shinkansen: around 1.5 hours
- From Nagoya to Nagano by the limited express, Shinano: around 3 hours
- From Osaka to Nagano by taking the Tokaido Shinkansen then the limited express, Shinano: around 4 hours
- From Kanazawa to Nagano by taking the Hokuriku Shinkansen: around 1 hour
The JR Pass That Covers Nagano Prefecture
Consider getting one of the following passes if you depart from Tokyo. Some cover the Kansai region (Osaka/Kyoto) too!
A return trip from Tokyo will cost you 16,280 yen, which is almost the price of the 5-day JR East Pass at 18,000 yen. The 5-day pass gives you unlimited train rides on all JR trains in the area, Tokyo Monorail, and Izu Kyuko Line. It also allows you to board the reserved bullet train carriages. Remember to purchase the pass through a reseller like Klook before arriving in Japan to save on the 10% tax.
- JR Pass (7-Day, 14-Day, or 21-Day)
- JR EAST PASS (Nagano, Niigata area) / 5 Days
- JR Hokuriku Arch Pass (7 Days)
Nagano Dentetsu’s Nagano Station
Nagano Dentetsu is Nagano Prefecture’s local train line. The train can take you to the chestnut town, Obuse, and Yudanaka, where you can take a bus to Snow Monkey Park.
Even if you don’t plan to utilize the train line, we recommend stopping by the station. Freshly harvested fruits and vegetables are sold at the station’s ticket gate. According to the station staff, local farmers deliver their products to the station around 5 am each day!
In autumn, you can get two big sweet apples for 500 yen. Once, we got the Shine Muscat grapes for only 700 yen!
Zenkōji Temple (善光寺)
Your visit to Nagano won’t be complete without stopping by the famous Zenkōji Temple. The temple receives as many as 6 million visitors each year! This symbol of Nagano City is located on a hill about 2 km north of Nagano Station. The temple, with more than 1,400 years of history, has many interesting cultural properties in its precinct. You can also experience the unique O-Asaji and O-Juzu Chōdai rituals if you visit the temple in the early morning.
For more information, please refer to our article on Zenkōji!
Specialties of Zenkō-ji that You Have to Try at Nakamise-dōri Street (仲見世通り)
Back in the Edo period, seven local specialties were sold at the shops around Zenkōji, which pilgrims would bring home as souvenirs after visiting the temple. The seven specialties are therefore known as the Seven Specialties of Zenkōji. Although not all seven have survived the test of time, we can still try three today when we go to the famous temple!
For more information about the best shops and restaurants around Zenkōji Temple, please refer to our article on Nakamise-dōri Street.
Karukayasan Saikōji Temple (刈萱山西光寺)
If you are walking towards Zenkoji Temple from Nagano Station or the other way around, stop by Karukayasan Saikōji Temple. While the precinct is compact, it is where you can experience Etoki. Traditional Buddhist picture storytelling is a cultural activity you can hardly find anywhere else. This temple should also interest those who previously visited the Karukaya-dō Mitsugon-in in Kōyasan.
For more information, refer to our article on Saikōji Temple!
Recommended Desserts Sold at MIDORI Nagano (MIDORI 長野)
What to do at Nagano Station? How about sampling the prefecture’s best confectioneries? Some famous dessert makers aren’t close to Nagano Station. But don’t worry. They have a branch at the MIDORI Nagano building above the station!
Zenkō-ji Rakugan (善光寺落雁) at Sakurai Kansei-dō (桜井甘精堂)
The Rakugan is the first confectionery sold around the temple that Zenkō-ji formally recognized in 1964.
Rakugan is a type of dry Japanese confection special to Kanazawa. It is made by mixing rice, soy, or barley flour with sugar, then pressing it into a pattern. What makes this Rakugan special is that red peas are used as an ingredient. With its unique red-pea flavor, it is the Rakugan you can’t find anywhere else in Japan!
Sakurai Kansei-dō has a branch at MIDORI Nagano. You can also enjoy a relaxing Japanese-style afternoon in the cafe next to the shop. The business hours are as follows.
- Shop: 9 am to 8 pm
- Cafe: 10 am to 6 pm
- The last order is taken at 5:45 pm.
If you have time, drop by their main store at Obuse, which can be reached by taking the Nagano Dentetsu for their wide range of chestnut desserts. For more information about Obuse, you can refer to our article on this chestnut town (=ﾟωﾟ)ﾉ.
Bon Sarrasin’s Soba Cheesecake (おそばのチーズケーキ)
Bon Sarrasin is a soba sweets specialist. Apparently, the shop’s name means delicious soba. With soba being Nagano’s most famous local specialty, it would be a shame if you don’t try out some of the buckwheat-related products!
The soba cheesecake from Bon Sarrasin was made using soba flour from Nagano. With buckwheat tea cream and cheese, a rich cheesecake with a pleasant buckwheat aroma comes to life. Also, the dish’s base dough is made from almost 100% buckwheat flour.
So, where can you taste this rare dish? Head to MIDORI Nagano’s 3rd floor. There is a restaurant called Soba-dokoro Miyota (そば処 みよ田). The restaurant offers a range of soba dishes. Not only do they have noodle soups, but they also have soba tofu, soba roll cake, soba ice cream, and soba cheesecake!
When we dined at Miyota, we also noticed that the restaurant was selling snow monkey buckwheat tea bags (see the last photo in the IG post). Our friends love the specially designed tea bags because they are so cute!
Just note that Miyota is a popular restaurant, so a long queue is expected, especially during dinner time. So, if you only want to try the cheesecake, visiting the restaurant in the afternoon is better.
- Soba-dokoro Miyota is open from 11 am to 10 pm.
- The last order is taken at 9:30 pm.
- Lunch is served from 11 am to 3 pm.
- The last order is taken at 2:30 pm.
- You can check out their menu HERE in advance.
Shōrō Monaka (鐘楼最中) at Fukaba-dō (二葉堂)
The last shop, Fukaba-dō, isn’t located close to the temple. But what is sold here still has a deep connection with Zenkō-ji.
If you have read our Zenkōji article, you would recall that the bell at Zenkōji is an important national artwork. At Fukaba-dō, established in 1804, you can eat the traditional Japanese confectionery called monaka in the shape of that bell!
Monaka is a bean-paste-filled wafer. Fukaba-dō offers customers two flavors: red bean or chestnut. Both are vegan, and both go well with coffee and tea.
And just want to point out that this bell-shaped monaka is officially recognized by Zenkō-ji!
Another Zenkō-ji recognized confectionery sold here is the chestnut manjū called Obinzurusan (おびんずるさん). This manjū differs from the Sake Manjū we mentioned in the Nakamise-dōri Street article in that the skin is firmer and contains eggs. The confectionery was designed to reproduce the slippery and shiny head of the statue of Pindola Bharadvaja (おびんずる尊者). So when you visit Zenkō-ji’s Hondō, remember to touch the statue’s head to get some blessings (^_-)-☆.
Despite containing eggs, their castella won a few awards, including coming first in the castella category at the National Confectionery Expo (全国菓子大博覧会).
Fukaba-dō’s Business Hours and Access Information
- The Nagano Main Store is open from 9 am to 7 pm.
- Fukaba-dō is unfortunately not close to Zenkō-ji Temple. It is a 10-minute walk from Nagano Dentetsu’s Asahi Station (朝陽), which is 4 stations away from Zenkōjishita Station.
- It is a 25-minute walk from JR Kitanagano Station (北長野駅).
- If you can’t be bothered to go all the way to their main shop, they have a branch at MIDORI Nagano (MIDORI 長野) next to Nagano Station.
- The MIDORI Nagano Fukaba-dō is open from 9 am to 8 pm.
Jōyama Park (城山公園)
Just next to Zenkōi Temple to the east, Jōyama Park, with its vast grounds, is best known for the stunning scenery of cherry blossoms created by the 470 cherry trees in the park. What some aren’t aware of is that the fall foliage here is amazing as well!
The park, which opened in 1900, is the oldest in Nagano City. Apart from the sports ground, there are also Higashiyama Kaii Kan (長野県立美術館 東山魁夷館) and Nagano Prefectural Art Museum (長野県立美術館) for you to get a vibe on how contemporary Japanese artworks differ from those of Western countries.
How to Get to Jōyama Park
Jōyama Park is just a 5-minute walk from Zenkō-ji’s Hondō.
Nagano Ebisukō Fireworks Festival (長野えびす講煙火大会)
If you love to attend Japanese festivals but hate the hot and humid summer, come to Nagano in late November for the Nagano Ebisukō Fireworks Festival, which usually attracts 200 to 300 thousand people!
The festival is part of Nishinomiya Shrine’s (西宮神社) annual Ebisukō ritual, which prays for a prosperous year and thriving business. At night on the last day of the ritual, the biggest fireworks event in Japan in autumn will take place at Saigawa Kasenjiki Park (犀川河川敷公園) on the bank of the Sai River (犀川).
The Sai River is around a 20 to 30-minute walk from JR Nagano Station’s east exit. If you don’t want to walk, there will also be temporary shuttle buses to the event venue (though there might be a long queue).
Tips:
☛ Arrive at the venue before 6 pm for some delicious street food from the temporary stalls!
☛ If it is too crowded on the bank of the Sai River, you can also get a clear view from Nagano City Olympic Memorial Arena (M-WAVE) (長野市オリンピック記念アリーナ(エムウェーブ）). It is also where you can park if you are driving as well. Temporary shuttle buses will run between the arena and the event venue.
☛ Remember to bring enough warm clothes as it gets quite chilly at night in Nagano during this time of the year.
Nagano Ebisukō Fireworks Festival
In 2025, the festival took place on November 23 from 6 to 7 pm. The fireworks launch began at 6 pm and lasted about 45 minutes.
You can refer to the official website HERE for more photos, video, and to find out if the next festival’s details are announced.
Reserving your spot is also possible for this event through the official website. An English reservation site is available.
The details of the next Nagano Ebisukō Fireworks Festival are scheduled to be released in September.
Zenkō-ji Omotesandō Illumination (善光寺表参道イルミネーション)
As Christmas approaches, the trees along the 1.8 km road leading from Nagano Station to Zenkō-ji Temple will be decorated with thousands of light bulbs, creating a warm atmosphere. This is probably the only time of the year you will be willing to spend 30 minutes walking to get to the temple (´▽｀*). The temple itself is also the venue for the lighting show.
In 2025/2026, the Zenkō-ji Illumination took place from November 15 to February 23, from 5 pm to 10 pm.
Explore the Chestnuts Town: Obuse
If you aren’t in a hurry, we recommend doing a day trip to the chestnut town Obuse. It is a historic hidden gem nestled just a short train ride from Nagano Station. The picturesque town is famous for its connection to Hokusai, housing the Hokusai Museum and the artist’s final masterpiece at Gansho-in Temple. As you break at one of the cafes in town, your tastebuds will be treated with world-class chestnut desserts! You can even visit someone’s backyard without notifying the owner!
For more information, refer to our Obuse article (=ﾟωﾟ)ﾉ.
Visit the Snow Monkeys in Jigokudani Monkey Park
We have all seen humans enjoying the hot spring. Especially in winter, you might have indulged in the onsen to warm up and let the rich minerals moisturize your skin.
But have you ever seen monkeys doing the same?
If you are interested, follow our article on Jigokudani Monkey Park to find out the best time of the year to visit and how to get there!
