Matsumoto

The Matsumoto basin was the centre of ancient Shinano province, and a provincial capital stood nearby long before the town existed. The castle began after 1504 as a border post called Fukashi, built by the Ogasawara, who governed Shinano, and it changed hands repeatedly during the wars of the 16th century, when Takeda Shingen took the basin and used it as a base against the north.

After Toyotomi Hideyoshi's victories the Ishikawa family held the fief and built the black keep between about 1593 and 1594, adding a lower turret and later a moon-viewing room with a red balustrade — a piece of peacetime architecture attached to a fortress. The town grew on the grid below: samurai quarters north of the Metoba river, merchants and craftsmen to the south along the road to the Zenko-ji pilgrimage route.

Fire shaped the merchant streets. After serious fires in the 19th century Nakamachi rebuilt in fire-resistant white plaster over black lattice, the look it keeps today. The Meiji government auctioned the castle for demolition in the 1870s; local men, among them the headmaster Ichikawa Ryozo, raised money to buy it back, and later campaigns paid to repair it. Silk, schools and later precision engineering carried the modern town, Matsumoto was raised to city status in 1907, and the 1998 Winter Olympics in the prefecture brought better roads. Matsumoto absorbed neighbouring municipalities in the 2000s and now stretches west to the crest of the Alps.

Matsumoto thinks of itself as a city of education, water and music. Shinano's Meiji-era enthusiasm for schooling produced the Kaichi School of 1876, built with money raised by residents, and the habit of civic subscription that saved the castle runs through the city's story.

Music is the strongest modern thread. Shinichi Suzuki developed his method of teaching young children the violin here, and the Talent Education movement he founded grew out of his school there. The conductor Seiji Ozawa established an international festival in Matsumoto that brings an orchestra, opera and chamber concerts to the city each late summer, and its concert hall is a Toyo Ito building. Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto, and her work is a fixture of the city art museum.

Craft is the other thread: furniture, wood-turned and lacquered tableware from the Kiso valley, and temari, balls wound in coloured thread, are sold from the craft shops and galleries in the storehouses of Nakamachi. Groundwater from the Alps is a point of civic pride, with free wells signposted around the old town and used by residents for tea and cooking.

Manners follow the national pattern, with a mountain-town directness. The castle, the wells and the riverside streets are everyday public space rather than a set piece, and residents use them daily.

About 240,000 people live in the city, which since its mergers covers a huge area from the basin floor to the ridges of the Alps. Most live in the flat centre and its suburbs, and the population has levelled off after a long period of growth.

The economy mixes precision manufacturing — machine tools, electronics components and medical equipment, an inheritance of the wartime dispersal of industry into the mountains — with a large regional hospital and university, agriculture in the basin, and tourism. Farms grow rice, apples, grapes for wine and the wasabi of the Azumino plain, and the prefecture's soba buckwheat is a mark of quality nationally.

Life runs on an early schedule, and shops close earlier than in a big city. Households keep cars because the mountains and valleys are hard to serve by train, and snow tyres go on in December. The clear, dry winter air and the mountain views are cited by residents as the reason to live here, along with easy access to skiing and walking.

Current concerns are the ones of provincial Japan: an ageing population, empty houses in the outlying valleys, keeping the mountain bus routes running, the cost of maintaining a wooden National Treasure, and the pressure of visitor numbers on Kamikochi's fragile valley floor.

Soba dominates. Shinshu soba, made from buckwheat grown in the cool highlands and mixed with the basin's water, is eaten cold on a slatted tray with a soy dipping sauce, or in hot broth with mountain vegetables; small shops mill and cut it on the premises, and the darker, coarser country style is common. Fresh wasabi from Azumino is grated to order alongside it.

The city's own pub dish is sanzokuyaki, a slab of chicken marinated in garlic and soy, coated in potato starch and deep-fried, eaten across the Chushin area of Nagano around Matsumoto and Shiojiri. Izakaya also serve basashi, thinly sliced raw horsemeat with ginger and soy, and sakuranabe, horse stewed with miso, both long established in the Nagano basins.

Mountain and preserved foods fill out the table: sansai, wild greens gathered in spring; oyaki, wheat dumplings stuffed with aubergine, pumpkin or pickled greens, steamed or seared on a griddle; river fish such as iwana grilled on skewers; and inago, grasshoppers simmered in soy and sugar, still sold in shops in the old town.

Nagano is one of Japan's larger sake regions, and breweries in and around the city use rice from the basin and snowmelt water. Apples and grapes grow on the surrounding slopes, supporting cider and a growing wine industry, and the coffee houses of Nakamachi roast their own beans in a city that takes its kissaten seriously.