Higashiagatsuma, Gunma

Stalks of konnyaku dry in rows outside a farmhouse somewhere between Gunma-Haramachi station and the gorge road — a quiet, unremarkable sight that quietly anchors Higashi-Agatsuma to its agricultural present. The town formed from a merger of two municipalities in 2006, but the land has been shaped by older forces: the Agatsuma River cutting through rock, the Sanada clan holding Iwabitsujō against all comers, and a heart-shaped clay figurine pulled from the earth that now speaks to a prehistory few visitors expect here.

The gorge itself, Agatsuma-kyō, runs close to Route 145, and the Tengū-no-Yu at Michi-no-Eki Agatsumakyo offers a free foot bath beside the road — a practical, unsentimental gesture toward the traveler. Further in, Kawanaka Onsen Kadohantei stands alone as a single inn, its waters counted among Japan's three beauty springs. The slopes hold Konifā Iwabitsū, with log-house lodging and outdoor workshops, while the ruins of Iwabitsujō above draw those willing to climb for the view of a mountain fortress the Sanada once called impregnable. At Kōhasukune Shrine, zelkova trees over seven centuries old shade a water deity enshrined to the Agatsuma River itself.

Come autumn, the Iwabitsuyama Kōyō Matsuri marks the season on the mountain's flank. Roadside stalls carry myōga, mountain vegetables, and salt-grilled iwana — the kind of lunch eaten standing, wrapped in paper, with the river audible somewhere below.