Nagoya - JR Nagoya Station

After the Toyota Automobile Museum we returned to the Nagoya JR Gate Tower Hotel, picked up the bags we left there, and made our final trip to the JR Nagoya Station.

Nagakute - Toyota Automobile Museum

We visited the Toyota Automobile Museum. While going through the museum I took pictures of the placards for the cars so that I would know what we were viewing. There were a lot of cars and I photographed them all. We had an audio tour and it was wonderful but also long.

 

Nagakute - Geidai-dori Station

We took the Limino line from its terminus in Nagoya to the Geidai-dori Station in Nagakute so that we could visit the Toyota Automobile Museum. When we were planning this trip we were going to skip this maglev line because it did not appear to be fast enough or close enough to something else we wanted to see. Turns out it was the main conveyance to a museum we wanted to see. So, we accidentally ended up on this maglev line.

Limino Line

We had to ride a ways from JR Nagoya Station and then on the Limino Line (formally known as the Aichi High-Speed Transit Tobu Kyuryo Line). Initially I thought this was a very smooth rubber-tired people mover. But, looking at the tracks / guide way and feeling how it accelerated we thought it may be something else. This is in fact one of the two revenue service magnetic levitation trains in service in the world.

Nagoya - Nagoya JR Towers

The Nagoya JR Gate Tower Hotel and the JR Nagoya Station are located in the Nagoya JR Towers. The towers are very close to a vertically integrated city. There are multiple hotels, it seemed like child education facilities, parking, a mall, some medical facilities, office space, two floors of restaurants, and a large train station. It is really quite an interesting building.

Nagoya - Nagoya JR Gate Tower Hotel

Yet another morning entrapped by the views outside the Nagoya JR Gate Tower Hotel. We found it interesting how the trains would line up for the morning rush hour. Also, we could catch some of the shinkansens coming from the service location. Again we were still shocked how dirty the tops of the shinkansen were.

Nagoya - JR Tsurumai Station

We stopped used the JR Tsurumai Station to get home having walked through a fair amount of Nagoya. We liked the arches in this train station.

Nagoya - Naka Ward Historical Walking District

We continued walking through the Naka Ward Historical Walking District. It is covered and is occasionally interrupted by a street. These are pedestrian only covered areas with lots of shops, casinos, restaurants, etc. Also lots of people bike to it for grocery shopping. Sometimes the ceiling has interesting design elements.

Nagoya - Fuji Sengen Shrine

Within the Naka Ward Historical Walking District we came across the Fuji Sengen Shrine.

Nagoya - Naka Ward Historical Walking District

The Osu Kannon Buddhist Temple is near one of the entrances for the Naka Ward Historical Walking District. We walked through this on our way back to our hotel.

Nagoya - Osu Kannon Buddhist Temple

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Nagoya. We visited the Osu Kannon Buddhist Temple.

Nagoya - SCMaglev and Railway Park

We payed a visit to the SCMaglev and Railway Park in Nagoya. This time I was more careful to take images of placards describing the displays. Also this time we had an audio guide which made the experience really nice. The museum had a very nice mix of old rolling stock, newer rolling stock, development and experimental vehicles, as well as displays regarding the science behind the railroad. It was really nice how much access we were given to the locomotives / rolling stock and their condition.

Nagoya - Kinjo-futo Station - Aonami Line

We took the Aonami Line from JR Nagoya Station to Kinjo-futo Station. There were some nice views of the port and bridges. We went to the SCMaglev and Railway Park.

Nagoya - JR Nagoya Station

A few more pictures of JR Nagoya Station.

Nagoya - Nagoya JR Gate Tower Hotel

We got distracted again in the morning. So, this train may have led to some wasted time. We were very distracted by all the inbound and outbound trains. We were surprised to see how clean the shinkansens were on the sides and yet how dirty on top.

Nagoya - Nagoya JR Gate Tower Hotel

At last we checked into our Nagoya hotel. The Nagoya JR Gate Tower Hotel is most likely the fanciest hotel we stayed in, and one of the closest to US hotel proportions. It also had a fancy tablet that controlled many things and let us order pillows (no charge), etc. It was quite nice.

Nagoya - JR Nagoya Station

After a long day of train rides we arrived at our last destination of the day, Nagoya. We took a few photos of the JR Nagoya Station platform.

Toyohashi - JR Toyohashi Station

We eventually arrived at JR Toyohashi Station, Toyohashi. So ended our trip down the Iida Line. We transferred to a shinkansen to get the rest of the way to Nagoya. Had we been in more of a hurry we could have gone from Chikuma City to Nagano and then rode shnkansens from Nagano to Nagoya, connecting in Tokyo. But the Iida Line was the slow and scenic route and well worth the extra time.

Iida Line Limited Express

When we were looking up things to do in Japan, and how best to get from Nagano to Nagoya we saw a little squigly railroad along a river called the Iida Line. This led us to a review on TripAdvisor. We thought it sounded really good and looked gorgeous.
Having now rode it ourselves there are numerous places we would like to stop and walk or hike along the river.
The Iida Line Limited Express was quite comfortable and we were able to get seats on the 373 Series that allowed us to see both out the front and side. This was important because there are a lot of tunnels which made some of the photography tricky. During our trip we crossed between Nagano Prefecture into Aichi Prefecture.