Nanto, Toyama Pref. ¨C The landscape rises leisurely as you drive away from Toyama Prefecture¡¯s coast ¡ª until it doesn¡¯t.
The 30-minute drive from the town of Tonami pulls you fairly quickly onto an expressway, from which it¡¯s hard to miss the sheet of rugged peaks curtaining the horizon. The visual is equal (if not in scale then in grandeur) to a drive through southern Bavaria ¡ª towering Alps hemming in your field of view wherever you look. You pass along the few roads that cut through the ever-engrossing countryside ¡ª and ¡°cut,¡± here, is a literal term: Occasionally, the expressway passes through artificial notches in low-lying hills, an expedient method of road construction while the landscape still allows it.
Soon enough, though, the mountainous terrain of southwestern Toyama Prefecture forces the car into a tunnel that takes no less than 10 minutes to clear. Even then, it¡¯s only for a precious few seconds of open-air driving that you¡¯re greeted by steep, tree-lined mountainsides so close to the road you feel like you can reach out and touch them and the rivered gorge below. Then, it¡¯s back into another snaking tunnel ¡ª a clear reminder that this is a slice of the Japanese countryside just barely brought to heel.
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