Magome (馬籠) was one of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō, an ancient road that connected Kyoto and Edo. This well-preserved section of the Nakasendo is in the present-day village of Yamaguchi, Kiso district, Nagano prefecture, Japan.
Standing 800m up in the hills above the Kiso valley, Magome means "horse basket", because this was where travellers on the Nakasendo were forced to leave their nags before tackling the mountainous stretch of road ahead.
Magome is famous for its native son, Toson Shimazaki (1872-1943), an author whose historical novel, Yoake Mae (Before the Dawn), put the town on Japan's literary map.
Magome's tourist information office (daily 8.30am-5pm; tel 0264/59-2336), opposite the Toson Kinenkan, has an English map of the area, and the staff (who probably won't speak English) can help with accommodation bookings at the village's numerous minshuku.
Magome (馬籠) was the forty-third of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō (中山道), an ancient road that connected Kyoto and Edo.
During the Meiji period, Magome was one of the eleven post towns on the Nakasendō highway (中山道) connecting Edo (Tokyo) with Kyoto.
Magome was the birthplace and childhood home of noted author Shimazaki Toson, 島崎 藤村, (1872-1943), who wrote about the Kiso region in his most famous novel, "Before the Dawn" (夜明け前).
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