Narai-juku, Shiojiri

Narai in Shiojiri is a post-town preservation district at the foot of Torii Pass on the Nakasendo, covering about 17.6 hectares. It is said to have been the largest of the eleven Kiso post towns on the Nakasendo. It was selected as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings in 1978, and townhouses from the late Edo period to the Meiji period still line the road.

A clue for looking at the buildings is the "dashibari-zukuri" style, in which the second floor projects forward beyond the first. Most townhouses face the road and stand across the full frontage of their plots, and this style is common among them. The eaves are deep and the roofs gently pitched. These roofs were originally wooden shingle roofs weighted with stones, but most are now iron sheet.

In Narai, lacquerware and bentwood crafts are known as traditional industries. Within the same city of Shiojiri lies Kisohirasawa, a lacquer-making town that prospered from the Edo period on lacquerware centered on everyday utensils, and which was selected as a separate preservation district in 2006. Its characteristic arrangement puts the main house facing the street and, across a courtyard, a lacquering workshop called a nurigura. Setting the post town of Narai beside the craftsmen's town of Hirasawa shows two faces of a roadside town. The Kisohirasawa district covers about 12.5 hectares, and lacquerware shops line the Nakasendo.

Preservation began early. The Narai-juku Preservation Society was founded in 1971, which means it had been active for about seven years before selection in 1978. From 1988 a project to relocate utility poles proceeded, and in 2007 the Tezuka residence in the district was designated a national Important Cultural Property. From selection through fiscal 2025, a total of 445 works have been carried out: 266 repairs and 179 landscape improvements. In Kisohirasawa, repair and landscape work began in fiscal 2007, and through fiscal 2025 there have been 45 repairs and 24 landscape improvements, 69 in all.

For walking the town, the preservation societies have made hand-drawn "tekuteku maps" that are handed out free, the city explains. Events such as the spring festival, the Tomyo lantern festival and the Ochatsubo Dochu procession are also held. In 2011 the town was used as a filming location for the NHK morning drama "Ohisama." Under use of the district and community building, the city lists continuing preservation by using vacant houses, and improving Wi-Fi and multilingual explanations. The city's material also mentions a shuttle bus that circulates among the preservation districts.