Ganztägige Tour zu Schneeaffen, Zenko-ji-Tempel und Sake in Nagano

I can't really say enough good about this day. Asuka was a wonderfully pleasant guide for the day. The monkeys were incredibly cool. The Nihonshu was tasty! Even though the forecast was for mostly cloudy, the morning was blue sky and HOT, so we worked up a good sweat walking to and around Zenko-ji. Next was Nihonshu tasting and lunch. Then you go on a decent length of a train ride + mini-bus up to the Snow Monkeys. You do have to walk for another 20ish minutes along both paved and non-paved incline, but it was very easy and I had some great conversation with the guide on the way. Then the monkeys! When you get into the main area, they are everywhere! They walk amongst you, though you cannot touch them. There were baby monkeys with their mommas. There were kid monkeys playing with each other. There were all kinds of other monkeys doing monkey things. We stayed for about an hour or so and I enjoyed every minute of it. The afternoon we went was rainy, so there were very few people there...maybe 6-8 other humans. The guide said it is usually much more crowded. Couldn't recommend this activity enough. Even with the Shinkansen day trip from Tokyo, it was well worth it. At the end of the day, grab some sushi from the local market at the train station and settle in for the ride back to Tokyo without much of a care except remembering your experience with the monkeys!

Very well organized tour with ample time at each location . Guide was very knowlegable and snow monkeys were lovely

We had a limited time in Japan, but seeing the snow monkeys was something we wanted to make time for. It made for a long day since we came from Tokyo, but we're so glad we went! We loved being outside we went in Feb and had fleece-lined pants, winter coats, snow boots, and hand-warmer packets, which was a nice change of pace from Tokyo. We researched a number of similar tours, but chose this one because visiting the monkeys were scheduled in the morning. The morning definitely had fewer people then compared to when we left. The baby macaques were adorable! The lunch was delicious. We stopped by a fruit market/grocery store and were able to buy a number of treats to take back for our families. The Zenko-ji Temple complex was beautiful. We loved our guide, Peter, he was very informative throughout the tour but not pushy. This tour was fantastic and we highly recommend it. And our friends and family love the pictures!

First we went to see the show monkey, and have shoes that not slip on ice or dirty ice. The monkey did not take a bath when I was there, but get some good pictures anyway. After that lunch at a ryokan that tastes very good., Then take bus and train to Nagano where we visited a famous Buddhist temple where our guide telling us many interesting things. And don't forget to go down in the labyrinth, and trying find the door to enlightenment. After that probably with a little tired feet it's time to go to the last event, sake tasting, there are both alcohol and non alcoholic, so everyone can taste.

Very good day. It was certainly worth it to see the snow monkeys and visit the Temple. I thought the temple visit was a throw-in but ended up being more than I expected. If you go in the winter you only Need to visit one days as the monkeys are always there at that time because of the temperatue of the hot springs.