2026 Iiyama Toro (Lantern) Festival: A Full-Day Course

This course lets you spend a full day enjoying Iiyama City in Nagano Prefecture, known as the Town of Temples. Honmachi Shopping Street, in the center of the city, is known as the stage for the Iiyama Toro Matsuri, where large lanterns unique to this snow country parade through the town. This course is a one-day plan that has you walk through the atmospheric streets of Iiyama, dotted with as many as 22 temples, from the daytime, and finish with a stroll along Honmachi Shopping Street in the evening. During the day, take in a panoramic view of the castle town from Iiyama Castle Ruins Park, and encounter heartwarming doll works at the Takahashi Mayumi Doll Museum. Next, spend a quiet moment at Chuonji Temple, a fitting representative of Iiyama's temple town character, and have dinner and a rest in front of Iiyama Station. As the sun begins to set, head to Honmachi Shopping Street. It's a day for the whole family to leisurely savor Iiyama's townscape, still bearing traces of its temple town heritage.