Madarao Farm

The agricultural essence of the neighborhood was great. The apples were delicious so were the persimmons lots of room bedrooms, barbecue and bicycles to Ride. We stayed there for four days and it was perfect. The host was great.

広い。部屋が多い。静か。スタッフが素晴らしい。

Great host who offered to drive us into town and pick us up from the station. Got on really well.

Nothing

The house is in a quite location, not too complicated to find (we did this with Google Maps). House is very spacious, has equipped kitchen and places to sit / get together / get warm at a cold day. Beds in a main bedroom are good. Location is perfect base for exploring Snow Monkeys resort and hiking at the same area. Madarao ski resort is half hour drive - though quite difficult serpantine road. We stayed in October so can not comment on snow season (but the house is not high in the hills). Hosts are very friendly, both Mike and Mayuko speak english with is very useful in Japan overall. You can get advices on the surroundings and ask to bring things that you feel are missing for your stay (from house equpment) - like extra heaters etc. We were arriving at a "great tayphoon" day and had major complications with trains and car rental, and Mike was very helpful via Skype chats and gave us few good advices. Overall, very nice hosts.

Unfortunately we faced three major things that vere there to spoil our stay to some extent. 1. House was cold inside. We used kerosene heaters which can heat some space yet have a typical smell - we woule never sleep with them open. There were also electrical heaters yet it is very hard to heal all the house inside. Bathroom is also cold. We slept having electical heater working in a main bedroom and this was OK. I do not know how the house manages to heet in winter - in October it was very cold. 2. House is old , non hermetic and has dust in many palces. Probably this is expected for farm house yet we did not expect this, not in Japan. 3. Most critical for us : the house has life inside. When we arrived we saw bugs (big green ones, flying with a small bomber sound) that were all around the lamps in the living room and in the kitchen ... later we found them everywhere. We managed to remove them from the bedroom - else girls would be totally unable to slip there. Mayuko said that these are "seasonal guests" yet this was a season that we came in. Unfortunately my daugter and wife can not tolerate such "wild life" in the place where we stay, so it was a tuff decision to stay for 3 nigts and not change our plans. This was clear to us from the moment - one that there is no reason to complaint on this matter as nothing could be possibly done about it. "take it or leave it" ... Overall I would not recommend this place for people sensitive for cleanness and precense of bugs / life in the house. For those who pay no attention to such things the place may turn out a good fit.