Iizuna, Nagano

Rows of apple trees line the plateau roads of Iizuna, and in autumn the branches bend low with fruit. This is orchard country — not decorative, but working. The town itself emerged from the merger of Mure and Sansui villages in 2005, and that layered origin shows in the way the land is used: fruit farms, high-altitude vegetable fields, a winery. At Sankuzeiru Winery, apples become cider and grapes become wine alongside shelves of agricultural preserves. The roadside complex Iizuna Connect EAST and WEST, opened in 2020, carries local produce and specialty goods — a practical stop that reads more like a community hub than a tourist facility.

Mure Station on the Shinano Railway's Kita-Shinano Line is quiet on weekdays, marked by a ceramic-tile monument where a great tengu statue once stood. That tengu thread runs deeper: the lakeside inn Mure Onsen Tengu no Yakata sits beside Reisenji Lake, drawing on the local legend of Iizuna Saburo Tengu. The lake itself has a floating bridge and a campsite, and in winter, anglers gather for wakasagi ice fishing. At Tanka-go, a hillside of peach trees — named by the Western-style painter Okada Saburosuke — holds a flower festival each May.

Mure Shrine, a former village shrine, observes its Onbashira festival every seven years, noted as the northernmost such festival in Japan. The Iizuna Apple Museum and the fields themselves suggest a place where agriculture is the primary fact of life, and tourism has grown around it rather than replaced it. The high plateau, backed by the peaks of Iizunazan and Madaraozan, gives the air a particular clarity that the apples seem to absorb.