This blog is about travelling through Japan on a bicycle. Initially on a foldable bicycle (Brompton) and more recently mostly by road bike (Spezialized)... but also by train, ferry, plane, bus or any other transport, if sea, weather, mountains or the like come between me and my desire to ride.
I have tried to summarise information that could be potentially helpful also for other bicycle travellers through Japan, such as list of bicycle roads, helpful web pages etc.
Route: Nagano - Matsushiro - Nagano Bicycle: 40 km
Riding time: 2:45 h Average speed: 14,2 km/h Total ascent: 216 m Weather: very sunny, a bit windy, warm but bearable, 26 C
For my last vacation day I stayed close to Nagano and went to the valley where I hadn’t gone yesterday to visit the castle ruins there.
Probably the most impressive today however were the mountains all around. Everywhere! I know that Japan is a very mountainous country, but somehow I just didn’t really realize it. And today there was no denying it.
(Yesterday all these mountains were hiding behind the rain clouds).
My first official stop was a battle field, now transformed into a serene park used by the locals to walk their dogs or play with their children. But once upon the time it was the witness to one of the bloodiest battles in the Sengoku 戦国 (literally “war country”) period of Japan.
Continuing just over the river were the remains (well actually the re-build remains) of the Matsushiro castle.
What I hadn’t expected was the village around with many other sightseeing spots. Among them the residence of the feudal lord of the castle (when he decided to no longer live in the castle itself), a school for the children of samurai, some other old houses and a much more modern construction.
The residence had a lot of tatami rooms and a very nice garden.
The only other place I visited was the modern construction in the last months of the war of an enormous underground tunnel system that was dug mainly by Korean forced laborers. Only a relatively small part of it is publicly accessible, but that small part is still pretty big and requires a lot of walking underground in the cold. In total apparently 6 km of tunnel were dug to host the government and all kind of government facilities. Somewhere else (not too far away) also a special bunker for the emperor was dug. None of this ever got used as the American advances were faster than the digging. Thanks to local residents the site has been opened since a few years. They also had a good English pamphlet explaining the history.
Originally I also wanted to visit a shrine on a hill in that valley but I got lazy and had lunch instead and then returned to Nagano, where I packed up my bike for one last time on this trip to take the Shinkansen back home. I had bought my ticket already in the small station of Tsunan a few days ago and the JR employee there had suggested to go with unreserved seats, so I could be sure to get a place for my bike behind the last row off seats. Luckily there are Shinkansen starting from Nagano. If not it would have been impossible.
This is a “slow” Shinkansen stopping at every possible station, but still since Takasaki all non reserved seats are taken and people are standing in the aisles. But I am sitting and more importantly my bicycle is standing behind my seat.
Oh yes, and it is “cosmos” time. Yet another of the season defining flowers of Japan.
Riding time: 3:19h Average speed: 12 km/h Total ascent: 391 m Weather: cloudy and some light drizzle, 20 C
The weather forecast for today was better than reality… it started with rain in the morning in Obuse and ended in rain in the afternoon in Nagano.
My first “stop” was the Hokusai museum a few hundred meters from my hotel of the night. The hotel actually looked nicer on pictures and from outside than the room itself. All the clothes I had washed yesterday evening where still as wet as when I had just washed them. Not even my gloves had dried, so I cycled without. Not very comfortable…
I had been in Obuse in early 2017 by train on my way to Shibu Onsen to see the snow monkeys…
… back then I didn’t go to the Hokusai museum, although it seemed that everyone else who had come to Obuse was interested in nothing else but this (well and omiyage obviously). So I had a new thing to do in Obuse. The Museum is okay. Probably the most interesting exhibit is actually not an original from Hokusai but rather a new print showing how many steps (in this case 11) were needed to print one view of the Fuji.
While for the first 4 days in Tsunan I had kind of a plan what to do, for these later days I had none. So yesterday evening I simple entered “Sightseeing” in Google Maps to see what it would come up with, and I found a temple in a nearby valley that seemed interesting as well as some castle remains in the next valley.
I only made it to the temple though, but it was a nice temple with a bit of a thrill. In order to go to the upper part of the temple I needed to enter bear territory, or so it seemed judging by this fence around the entire mountain.
But no bear, luckily, just a temple at the end of a steep and winding road.
After visiting this temple, I reconsidered my plan for today, also because it was starting to rain a little bit more, and went to Nagano directly and to the Zenkoji temple. And here in the rain were all the tourists I hadn’t met in the last week.
The most interesting bit of the temple was the visit to an underground , pitch dark space below the “altar”. We crept forward little by little, holding onto the wall and every now and then bumped into each other. All in search for a hidden noisy “door” contraption. Not really sure what it was supposed to be, but everyone else was very excited when they found it in the dark.
The temple itself is at the end of a huge “temple approach road” and behind the mountains start, only that today all this was in the mist of rain.
While yesterday night my bike had to sleep outside on the veranda, today it is sleeping right in front of the reception in the dry and warmth.
I had reserved this hotel, the DormyInn on recommendation of a fellow poster on the Japan Guide Forum, which is the hotel in Nagano she always recommends. It is a business hotel but with a few extra quirks: a small super sento including rotenburo and sauna, free ice cream, free apple juice & coffee in the lobby and a soup at night. Also the rooms are slightly bigger than your normal business hotel.
Riding time: 3:55 h Average speed: 14,9 km/h Total ascent: 464 m Weather: More and more rainy, 17 C
Not too much to report today. Maybe because it was the longest day in the saddle so far or, more likely, because as the day progressed it rained more and more. What initially was a very light rain that could be ignored became a persistent rain drenching everything (and me).
Before leaving the Tsunan Echigo area I visited two last art locations. These statues at the side of the road and river (the neon helmet is mine) …
… and then another area with a new abandoned school used as exhibition space and a new building sponsored by Hongkong.
The art was so so, but the school was kind of sad. There were still the pictures of the classes and their activities. I searched for my own graduation year and back then the school was still going strong and continued so for some more years. But now it is no longer used. This is a real problem in Japan, that the countryside is losing its population, specially the young. And this combined with a low birth rate just means that the country side is getting more and more abandoned. When I was cycling through this farm landscape I wondered when I saw a young farmer in Japan. Normally all farmers you are at least 60 but more likely 70 or 80. How will this continue? Shouldn’t Japan introduce some special visa category for rice farmers, give them an empty house and a few acres of fields and require that they stay at least x years in farming before they can change to some other visa category?
I followed the Shinano river for most of the day:
The valley only opens around Iiyama to then become the fertile plain around Nagano which seems to be the orchard of Japan.
Of the castle in Iiyama only a gate survived…
… but there is a large temple district with one temple besides the next (and some intersected shrines).
After lunch in Iiyama I continued for the last 20 km, now in steady rain, towards Obuse, where I am staying tonight. I arrived completely drenched. That’s kind of okay as long as it isn’t too cold but only as long as riding. Once you stop it just feels very wet.
My hotel for the night is right in the center. And looks quite nice from the outside, but the room itself is so lala, and there isn’t an onsen :-(
Train: 30 km Riding time: 3:07 h Average speed: 10,7 km/h Total ascent: 866 m Weather: Cloudy but dry until I was safely at Matsudai, 19 C
Today didn’t go to plan, and that was a good thing. Yesterday after looking at the weather forecast I had decided to take the train from Tsunan to Matsudai and do some art sightseeing on foot. However when I checked the train timetable while having breakfast on my room, I realized that there was no train for the next 3 hours. So I looked again at the weather forecast and at the ride I had planned and decided to go by bike anyway.
Today has a lot of climbing but it was all at the very beginning which was very encouraging as if it was going to be too hard, I could have turned Anywhere and would have been able to come back safely. And will it was a lot of climbing. I started right behind the hotel on a street that was actually closed to traffic, but okay for a cyclist. And it went up and up. I took a lot of pictures of the valley below showing how I slowly but steadily ascended.
At a midway point (which felt to me like the peak) there was even this viewing platform:
But then it went further up to a ski resort which also hosts some art work:
From there it continued to go up until the highest point of today, where there was an other view point.
But from there it was going to be mainly downhill with a few lumps at the very end, but nothing too long. And I have to say the ascent was worth it and was not as bad as I feared. I managed to cycle practically all parts (just a little bit of pushing but maybe only 100 m in total). Thanks to the views and the art work I could also take some rest in between.
But all this hard work brought me to a very remote place with rice terraces hanging in the middle of the mountains and I even had the entire state road #405 to myself.
(looking now at this picture, maybe this rice terrace was actually the best “artwork” of the day)
When planning in Komoot the tour automatically selected small roads, but I checked before heading of if there was any gravel in it and avoided it. Actually Komoot wanted to send me downhill onto a gravel road into an area where probably only every few weeks a human being comes through. I am not that adventurous and was actually quite happy when I came down to Matsunoyama and was once again among people. And more importantly, a vending machine, where to stock up with further drinks.
In Matsunoyama onsen I had a hot foot bath and an onigiri and the continued on my way to Matsudai, where there are a lot of artwork in the fields above the town and in the small (rebuild) castle:
I have been here in 2015, and I think I saw most of many of these artwork already, but it’s always nice to see them in the landscape. Not all of this artwork is actually very nice at least in my opinion, But the location is really nice. What maybe impresses me the most is the view from Matsudai castle over the mountains where the only thing you can see as far as the eye reaches is forest.
Inside the castle was maybe the best piece of (actual) art I saw today. Something different on all three floors but the best was what looked like a Japanese lacquer box in the top room with the view.
My way back is by train. Two small trains which at this time of the day (16:30-18:00) are used mainly by students. Using these small trains during the last days, I decided to come back here sometime later in the year just by train and spend a weekend just riding around on small trains through the countryside.
Weather: Cloudy, later some sun, no rain, perfect weather for cycling, 15 C
Today was a perfect cycling day: not too hot, no rain and a nice destination with some intermediate stops as well. The first at stop was this:
Entering inside it becomes very serene and adult…
Only to throw your high art feeling back to the ground with this playground installed inside the artwork:
While making my way uphill I came through the small village of Kuramata, small, but well equipped (police, school, post office). I took advantage of the post office and sent my mother her birthday card. For 70 yen, I got a card, the postage to Germany and a free package of handkerchiefs as a present. And hours later when I was having a very light lunch outside of the gorge, I was approached by a Japanese lady who asked me if I had sent a postcard from Kuramata post office earlier today. It turns out, her sister works there and I had forgotten to write my address on the card. As they had asked me in the post office where I was going and they had a sister there, they safely found me in the middle of the Japanese countryside and I got to give my address to the post office lady by phone. So now the birthday wishes should be safely on their way.
From the post office I continued my way up the lush green valley. Lucky for me there was a road on both sides of the valley, one with some considerable traffic (specially lorries) and the other one very quiet. That's the one I took.
The gorge has a tunnel exclusively for sightseeing. When I first heard about this tunnel I was wondering where it was actually leading, as there didn't seem to be a street beyond the tunnel, and yes, this tunnel was only constructed for sightseeing of the gorge and has several outlooks. It was constructed maybe in the 70's or so and a few years ago was in need of reform and instead of just reforming it, someone had the great idea to hire a renown architect to redesign the tunnel, and this is the result:
At the very end of the tunnel is the biggest outlook in front of which the architect put a shallow water basin in which the tunnel and landscape reflect.
The views from the tunnel are obviously also nice, that's what this tunnel was originally built for, but nowadays, the architecture is even more impressive.
At the exit/entrance of the tunnel is a small building with a coffeeshop and a footbath on the 2nd floor. Also by a famous architect.
Riding back down the valley I made a brief detour on the "wrong" side of the valley, the one with the many lorries, but quickly made it back over again to the quiet side and up to an other art work, a snake slithering through the hills.
From there on it was nearly all downhill, making just a stop to admire this art work, which is probably the one I like most in the Echigo-Tsumari region. Very serene:
Already quite close to my ryokan, I made a last small detour to see the cliffs on the Shinano river:
Route: Around Tsunan Bicycle: 22 km Riding time: 1:21 h Average speed: 16,2 km/h Total ascent: 216 m Weather: Wet although not really raining and cool, 15 C
Today the typhoon passed through. A once in a decade typhoon (supposedly) but till it came here (it had passed through Kyushu and then all the way up through Honshu until here it had lost its power. But still it was a very rainy day. So in the morning I had a Japanese breakfast in the hotel, then wrote the blog post of yesterday and essentially didn’t do anything.
Around mid day it seems that the rain was getting a little bit lighter, so I decided to give it a go and ride to the place about 10 km from here, where there are some more artworks.
Each artwork has a small stamp hanging in a half cut PET bottle, so that you can stamp in your booklet that you completed this piece of the exhibition. The toilet in the picture above actually is also art, but also toilet. Whoever said that art cannot be practical.
On my way back, I bought some dinner and some thing for breakfast at the typical convenience store. It is really surprising how an even very remote and rural regions of Japan one can find convenient stores in most villages, that offer the same products as in Tokyo or elsewhere. And they are well used. In the time I was eating a pizza man (ピザまん) just in front of the convenient store, I could see the coming and going of the clients, all of them arriving in their small cars or trucks, picking up something small and getting on their way.
But today was really no day for riding, but for bathing.
Weather: Sunny, too hot (as often before a typhoon) and very windy, 33C
After arriving in the dark yesterday evening at my accommodation, when I got up today I found that I had been sleeping at the valley station of the local ski lift.
The ski towns in Japan, at least in this valley are very retro without wanting to be so. Just stuck somewhere in the 1970/80 never renovated again. With some hotels now abandoned and the others not too well kept. I went twice in winter to ski with my former colleagues quite closeby (Iwappara) and the most impressive where the chairlifts. Just a seat and nothing else. No protective bat to avoid you falling down tens of meters and certainly no wind protection or heating as lately has become quite normal in the Alps. All this however in a landscaped blessed with abundance of snow, very much to the contrast to the Alps.
The streets are also prepared for the snow and have small warm water outlets build in to keep the roads ice free.
Today however no snow but instead heat. A lot of heat. Although I started at 7:00, the temperature was already up to 29C. Luckily however my way through the valley to the train station was all a gentle downhill.
I didn’t want to target any specific train as I didn’t want to feel compelled to rush plus I don’t really know yet how long it takes me to pack up my bike. Decently much longer than with the brompton. But when I arrived at the station I had comfortable time to pack everything, get a drink and board the train.
The train brought me through what seemed to be very high mountains (one station was even totally underground) and over to Tokamachi, one of the main towns of the Echigo - Tsumari Art Triennial. I had been here back in 2015, then by car, and really liked the laidback atmosphere, the landscape and how that modern art somehow coexisted with landscape and people. At the station I picked up my “stamp rally ticket book” screwed my bicycle back together and set of. I had planned a tour around Tokamachi to the main art attractions and then through the valley to Tsunan where I will be staying for the next 4 days. But… the heat!
Anyway I did set out to my first goal and on the way even achieved my 4th QOM … by cycling & pushing up the bike and resting repeatedly in the shade. 13:38 min for 0,75 km! And still QOM ☺️. Thanks to the fact of being the first woman on Strava to even attempt that climb. Surprisingly. It’s not such a remote place and with the artwork at the top I would have expected a few more cyclists to go that way, but either Strava is much less popular in Japan or cycling is even less popular for women in Japan as it already was in the Netherlands. (Yes, everyone cycles in an utilitarian way in NL, but for Sport it’s still a 10:1 ratio more or less. At least that’s what I counted on cool days in the winter).
On the top of the hill I stocked up on fluids and hiked up the last hundreds of meters through some art with to the first major art work. An entire building used as hotel at night and an art work during the day:
The main attraction of this building is its movable roof:
After that I needed my first longer break in the club house of a low key golf club and got my first ice cream of the day. There I decided to cut my visit short and add in a museum instead of more outdoor and more cycling. Which was a wise decision seeing how hot the day has become. I did continue a little bit though as I thought there was an other cluster of artwork nicht to gar from where I was and all downhill. Well it wasn’t all downhill and I only found one artwork. Then I remembered that I had seen the others a few years ago and that they had involved a bit of hiking around in a field. So no. Not today. I did see some other artwork though, like this “exploded” parking lot.
Cycling back I want only cycling in the heat but also against the strong typhoon winds:
At some point I actually only wanted to rest in the shade of a building, but that building happened to be a sober restaurant. After not too much thought I decided to stop here and have lunch. It must have been a pretty famous restaurant in the area, as there was a queue and a big parking lot. But I finally got my very special so ba dish:
Special and filling. And finally I restarted my ride back into the city and to its modern art museum. For a town like Tokamachi, which seems to be pretty much stuck in the past and getting older and more outdated by the day, this modern art museum was a real beacon of light. And for me specially the inner yard with its water filled pool was a nice place to rest cool down before entering into the museum.
They were a few interesting art pieces inside as well. For example this installation which gracefully danced every now and then…
Or this installation of a heavy liquid flowing down and leaving impressions in the pool below.
There was also a very interesting model train ride in the dark. A very simple idea: A small model train equipped with a small, strong light, riding around in a dark room through which some other objects are placed so the work of art is actually the shadows along the walls. A very meditative place. Also the swarm of clock insects was quite nice:
There wasn’t anything else interesting in the vicinity so I took another long rest in the shades of the inner yard before heading to the train station, packing up the bicycle yet again, and boarding local train to my accommodation in Tsunan, where I will be staying for the next 4 days.
BTW, the museum had an onsen, but even the train station here in Tsunan has an onsen. Neither of which I visited, as I have my own onsen including rotenburo in my ryokan accommodation.
