Toyama to alpine route and back Toyama

Hi,

We will be driving to Toyama by car and intend to tour the apline route the next day. We will leave both our car and luaguge at the hotel in Toyama and intend to return to the hotel for another night after our apline route trip.

I notice many suggestions are one direction. I hope someone could provide advice on the itinerary for a return direction on the same day.

Please also advice if this is better done from Matsumoto instead ?

Thank You
Hock

Hi there. I also plan to visit alpine route during mid april. If you are plannig to visit it right now you wont be able to go all the way to the end so it is better to go back i guess. but if you are going to go for full route after april 15th, i think it is better to stay at matsumoto since the route takes about 7-9 hours one way. If you haven't experienced ryokan stay , it is also a good opportunity to stay at ryokan in matsumoto since it is much cheaper than kyoto(I booked a 4 star ryokan just for 6000 yen for a night with rotenburo without meals.)

Agreed. A stay in Matsumoto -- or that general area -- would probably be wise. Plus, there's a lot to see around there and, as mentioned, the accommodations are reasonable and quite nice.

I don't think it matters where you stay. To do the alpine route loop, you'll go through Toyama either way.

Stay a Toyama, do Alpine route, then bus/train/shinkansen back to Toyama via Nagano.
Stay at Matsumoto, do Apline route, then train/shinskansen back to Matsumoto via Toyama.
Stay at Nagaano, do Alpine route, then train/shinkansen back to Nagano via Toyama

we intend to go on 15apr. How and where we should tstart fr Matsumoto and travel back to Matsumoto? Thanks

While I think Matsumoto seems more scenic than Toyama, since you're hoping to do a round trip I might pick Toyama as your location because you are doing a round trip.

You spend 1 hour getting from Matsumoto to Shinano-Omachi and the start of the route vs. from Toyama you are already at the terminus for the Toyama Chiho Railway. You can start the route as early as you can get up and the Toyama Chiho railway starts running.

The route from Shinano-Omachi back to Toyama doesn't have to go through Matsumoto, (Hyperdia keeps telling me it is faster to go to Minami-Otari and transfer there for a train to Itoigawa to then catch the shinkansen for Toyama which completely skips Matsumoto) but the route from Tateyama has to go through Toyama. So since your goal is the round trip, I would pick Toyama or specifically Shinano-Omachi vs Nagano or Matsumoto.

Good luck!

Thank you all for the replies.

It seemed too much trouble traveling time to do round trip... we decided that we will just return the rented car before doing the alpine route.

Thank you all for the replies.

It seemed too much trouble traveling time to do round trip... we decided that we will just return the rented car before doing the alpine route.