SW2023 D3 Aizuwakamatsu - Kinugawaonsen

Route: Aizuwakamatsu - Kinugawaonsen
Bicycle: 101 km
Average speed: 17,6 km/h
Total ascent: 1,192 m
Riding time: 5:44 h
Weather: Sun, some clouds and a few drops of rain, still quite hot and humid, 26C (per Wahoo)

After the ride yesterday, cut short by the heat, I was a little bit worried about today’s rather long and mountainous ride. However, I had planned the ride to be along a train line that also connects Aizuwakamatsu to Kinugawa onsen. Those trains aren’t very frequent, so yesterday evening I wrote down on a small piece of paper, the possible connections that could save me from the heat, exhaustion, or other impediments to continue all the way to my goal. But finally, I made it all the way! The ride was partially on a secondary roads, slowly sloping up towards the border between Fukushima and Tochigi Prefecture through a landscape bordered on all sides by mountains as far as your could look. 

I hadn’t really realized before, just how mountainous Japan really is. I know this sounds crazy. I’ve been living here, for more than 4 years. I’ve been traveling a lot, but still it surprises me just how many mountains there are. 

Pouring water over me at regular intervals helped to keep my body temperature in an okay range. Also, instead of thinking of it as of 100 km ride I was more looking at smaller targets: the next convenience store, lunch, the next major town. 

Some of the roads were very small countryside roads while others were more busy, none of them really too busy but if you know how empty the street could be every truck seems to be one too many. There was also a fair number of tunnels both up and down hill, but it was all okay.

On the way down to Kinugawaonsen, I did run into this group of monkeys. It seemed an entire family, maybe 20 or so, even including a mother monkey with a small baby. 

The hotel in Kinugawaonsen (Itoen) however was quite bad. I mean, it was cheap... and had a rotenburo, but clearly nothing had been renovated in that hotel since 20 - 30 years, so essentially since it was build during the bubble years. It is a real pity, there are so many onsens towns that have been utterly destroyed by huge hotels that are now either completely abandoned or are in a severe state of disrepair / not well maintained. And these towns are very ugly. But still enough people go there to enjoy a day away, the onsen and dinner. Although in that hotel dinner was the worse of the worst. But yeah, I survived this as well and I had a very huge (but ugly and slightly unclean) room.