Matsumoto, Yamanouchi and Kusatsu Onsen 2024

In the previous video, we were at Takamaya attending the Spring Festival aka Sanno Festival. Now we are heading to Matsumoto, Yamanouchi and Kusatsu.
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Matsumoto (松本) is the second largest city in Nagano Prefecture. It is most famous for Matsumotojo, one of Japan's most beautiful original castles.
Matsumoto Castle (松本城, Matsumotojō) is one of the most complete and beautiful among Japan's original castles, i.e. the castles whose keeps have survived the post-feudal ages intact. It was built on the plains rather than on a hill or mountain. Matsumoto Castle is unique for having both a secondary donjon and a turret adjoined to its main keep. The castle structures, in combination with their characteristic black wainscoting, give off an air of grandeur and poise.
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Yamanouchi (山ノ内) is a municipality in northern Nagano Prefecture with a variety of tourist attractions. The area's Jigokudani Monkey Park draws many visitors because of its unique, wild monkeys who bathe in the park's natural hot springs. The monkeys are not the only ones enjoying the water, as the nearby towns of Shibu Onsen and Yudanaka Onsen are centered around the bathing experience.
Yamanouchi (山ノ内) is a municipality in northern Nagano Prefecture with a variety of tourist attractions. The area's Jigokudani Monkey Park draws many visitors because of its unique, wild monkeys who bathe in the park's natural hot springs. The monkeys are not the only ones enjoying the water, as the nearby towns of Shibu Onsen and Yudanaka Onsen are centered around the bathing experience.
The Jigokudani Monkey Park (地獄谷野猿公苑, Jigokudani Yaen Kōen) offers visitors the unique experience of seeing wild monkeys bathing in a natural hot spring. The park is inhabited by Japanese Macaques, which are also known as Snow Monkeys. It is located in the monkey's natural habitat, in the forests of the Jigokudani valley in Yamanouchi, not far from the onsen towns of Shibu and Yudanaka.
The park has one man-made pool around which the monkeys gather, located a few minutes' walk from the park entrance. Visitors will likely already encounter monkeys along the path to the pool. The monkeys live in large social groups, and it can be quite entertaining to watch their interactions. Accustomed to humans, the monkeys can be observed from very close and almost completely ignore their human guests. Naturally, it is prohibited to touch or feed the monkeys.
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Kusatsu Onsen (草津温泉) is one of Japan's most famous hot spring resorts and is blessed with large volumes of high quality hot spring water said to cure every illness but lovesickness.
Kusatsu is situated at an altitude of 1200 meters above sea level in the mountains of Gunma Prefecture, and offers skiing in winter and hiking during the rest of the year to be enjoyed in combination with hot spring bathing. Kusatsu is also located along Japan's Romantic Road.

The Yubatake (湯畑, lit. "hot water field") is the symbol of Kusatsu and one of the resort's main sources of hot spring water. In fact, with an output of 5000 liters per minute, the Yubatake ranks among Japan's single most productive hot spring sources.
After bubbling to the surface at a temperature of more than 70 degrees Celsius and with a pleasant sulfur odor, the hot spring water is cooled down in the Yubatake's wooden conduits by a few degrees before it gets distributed to the various ryokan and public baths. In addition, sulfuric sediment (yunohana, lit. "hot water flowers") that collects in the wooden conduits over time is periodically harvested and sold as a type of "bath salt" at local shops.