Nagano Station — Local services in Nagano

NICE, COZY, CLEAN, GOOD RESTAURANTS, AND NO MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. NOVEMBER 2024

Nagano station is such a nice place with high ceiling and lots of natural lights. After ‘surviving’ the Kyoto Station, I couldn’t help but sat around the station and enjoyed the atmosphere. From Nagano Station I could take the local trains to visit the area. The Dentetsu train station Entrance is right outside the Zenkoji Exit.

Great steak restaurant on the 3rd Floor. A nice steak and fries with a small glass of red wine to enjoy and relax before boarding the train back to Kyoto. Only in Nagano station. I used to be able to do this in Kyoto station (before Covid). Not anymore.

Nice resting area on the 2nd floor. A good tiny Ramen shop right on the 1st floor. The shopping area in the station has many stores with nice winter fashion. A great bakery that opened at 8 am for my coffee and pastries.

Across the street from Nagano station, there is a gem of a Bike Rental Shop run by a grandpa and a grandma. It’s only 100 m away. (See my attached pic). An Electric bike is a must in Nagano unless you’re a real mountain rider. The price is very standard.

Another great feature of Nagano station is the Free Shuttle Bus next to the Hotel Metropolitan in its loading zone. This free shuttle bus took me to a nice Onsen every day and it ran every hours into the evening. The time table is posted at the shuttle stop and it’s only a 10 minute ride to the Onsen.

From Nagano station, I can relax, plan my day to bike or walk around, eat good food, and end my day at the onsen, being chauffeured to and back.

Nagano’s apples are the best I ever had. Really. So sweet, with a little tartness, crispy, and light. I got them for a dollar each.

Last but not least, on the right side of the station I found an amazing Vietnamese restaurant with such authentic dishes on its menu. It’s called Mộc Phở.

With its fresh cool air, beautiful mountain and all of the features above, it has become my #1 Japan...

I have no words. Is this the state-the-art latest technology Japan I had heard so much about?

We arrived at the station on time, we had our Pasmo and Suica cards with us, and we also had credit cards and pay cards. None of these were accepted at the station. We missed the train while a poor station clerk tried to desperately help us as we fumbled with coins to meet the criteria of a machine that only accepts particular payment methods and not all coins.

To be more precise a paper ticket that will take you to the hot springs and the monkey trail park costs about 1,400yen however you are specifically not allowed to use 500yen coins to pay for this.

The entire experience left quite the frustrating impression on me. We were "lucky" because there was another train one hour later and with that we just about made it in time for our check in at the hotel. However, for an area that thrives on tourism, this level of service is simply unacceptable.

Please upgrade your systems, catch up with the rest...

Quite crowded with many local and foreign tourists carrying suitcases and skis or snowboards, heading to or from the ski resorts nearby. Note that the queues for the ticket machines (e.g. to reserve shinkansen seats) can get pretty long, because there are just so many tourists... The queues for the express buses to the Snow Monkey Park also get long quite quickly for the same reason.

That aside, the station is clean and easy to navigate, with clear signages, many food options, and a supermarket at the basement level. The train station staff as well as the tourist info centre staff are all super helpful and friendly.

Many coin lockers are available at the gantry level, and a few more lockers can be found next to the supermarket or department store at the basement level towards the Zenko-ji Exit. You can easily change your notes into coins using the machine at the lockers. The biggest locker sizes are usually taken up...