東京から自家用車で日光の歴史を探る

Enjoyed a wonderful guided tour with Kana to Nikko. Saw both the historical and scenic sides of the city. The day was both fun and informative. Highly recommend Kana, Outech, and this tour!

Kana Tanisaka is a very professional driver in Villeneuve on big roads and small winding mountain roads. She is also knowledgeable about the places she visits and attentive to all aspects of customer service. Also she is very pleasant in conversations.

Great tour, our driver Hitoshi was excellent and gave very good suggestions for things to see and do. He contacted us in advance to see what we were interested in doing.

If you enjoy history and culture, I highly recommend this tour. After partaking in one of Outech's other tours, Mt. Fuji, I decided to book another with my same guide, Riley (Ryoko). She's absolutely phenomenal, and I highly suggest you request her if she is available. She is extremely knowledgeable, friendly, and can answer almost any question you throw at her. If she doesn't know something, she will seek out the answers from the various staff members and stewards at the various shrines and other locations. Her English is excellent, and she translated various conversations for me when talking with the staff at various craft shops. I highly suggest stopping by the craft shop located on the other side of the mountain where the Nikko Shrine sits. There's an insanely beautiful Buddhist temple nearby the store that we visited, and the owner's of the shop were so kind they even offered us tea. You can purchase a variety of intricate carvings and other artworks from them. I got a personalised plaque with my family name on it, and they carve it into the wood right in front of you. One of my favourite experiences! As for the Nikko Toshogu Shrine, it's incredibly beautiful. If you're bold enough to walk the two hundred steps up the mountain, you can witness one of Shogun Tokugawa's resting places: a small pagoda containing some of his remains. It's quite a mystical place, I must say. The inner sanctum of one of the shrines is absolutely gorgeous, and they provide guests with a brief tour explaining the acoustics of the building which amount to nothing less than magic. If you go during the winter, I suggest bringing thick socks as you have to remove your shoes before entering certain areas. By the end of the inner sanctum tour, I had almost no feeling in my toes, but I was fine afterwards! We also visited Kegon Falls, a beautiful display of natural wonder, especially in the winter. I do suggest dressing warm as it was quite frigid that time of year, but incredibly worth it. I highly recommend this tour if you're into cultural and natural beauty.

Despite steady rain and lots of crowds we had a spectacular day with our driver/guide Roberto. Fluent in English he was able to amplify the experience by providing historical background as well as interesting vignettes. And he selected an excellent sushi restaurant for our lunch break. We would recommend Roberto and his company without reservation!