Hi Marta, my apologies for the delay in replying this one got missed. What a fabulous trip to do as a family. Coming back through the top route from Kanazawa and down through Nagano makes a lot of sense and adds some variety to what you'll see from the train. For the coastal towns, it will depend a bit on what you are after from them, especially in winter. Naoshima is more about the art than coastal scenery, it's quite an effort to get to so I would only prioritise it if that was what I wanted to see, it's not the easiest to get around to the various installations and English information on the artists and pieces is limited. I would probably focus on Kanazawa, Takayama and Shirakawa-go. Depending on what you want to see, a day trip from Tokyo to Kamakura and Enoshima on the coast might work, Enoshima is an island connected by a causeway to the mainland and is a shrine island, there is a variety to see there and if you go over the top and down the (quite a lot) of stairs on the seaward side you can get to the rocks and some caves that go under the island. If you are using a JR Pass for your time touring then my 'coastal' pick would be to go through to Hiroshima and out to Miyajima Island, winter often has clear sky and good visibility making the view out over the inland sea from up Mt Misen spectacular.

Thanks Fairlie, will add Morimoto to our NYC list 🙂

Have a fantastic trip, there's so much to see and experience. I adore Japan, as I guess you probably know from my site 🙂

Japanese food is so good, I'm sure at least half of my love for travel is about the food experience. Probably not something I should admit, but true 🙂