On 2014-09-05 04:12:37 +0000, mtfester@netMAPSONscape.net said:

> gtr <xxx@yyy.zzz> wrote:
>> Every year from 2001 to 2006 the wife and I went to Japan for 2-3.
>> Usually to different places (except for Tokyo, our point of entry).  We
>> went to Osaka a couple of times and Kyoto twice.  From Nagasaki to
>> Morioka, with some little onsen towns like Yudanaka, and any number of
>> smaller places like Shiraishi Island, Tonno, Ayu-Wakamatsu, Matsue.
>> What fun.
> 
>> Then financial circumstances, including the disparity between dollar
>> and yen precluded it almost 8 years.  Now we're going back.  This time
>> for six weeks.  We'd never been to Kanazawa, so we're going there.
>> Spending 10 days in Kyoto during which time we'll do a number of
>> day-trips. But we still have a few weeks to fill on the dance card,
>> roughly between Kobe and the Izu Peninsula.
> 
>> When we finish in Kyoto and before we leave from Tokyo, we have about
>> 10 days.  So we were thinking about staying 2 or 3 places along the way
>> back.  Maybe Koya-san.  Izu Peninsula.  Nagoya sounds too big after
>> Kyoto.  Perhaps snooping through Shizuoka.
> 
>> Any recommendations for interesting but somewhat out-of-the-way places,
>> generally in that part of the country?
> 
> Nikko? Shikoku? Sapporo? Nagasaki?

Well those are certainly out of the way.

Shikoku we've been to but not in the full-press temple-crawl.  As Nancy 
once said, "I can only look at so many churches."  Sapporo was on our 
list early this time, I've always wanted bragging rights on having been 
to Hokkaido, but dang it's a long haul there and then another long haul 
to get *back* from there.

But I really meant in the last days days somewhere in the semi-coastal 
area between Kyoto and Tokyo; generally in *that* part of the country.