D5 Noijiri lake and back home

Route: Shibu onsen - Lake Nojiri - Nagano
Bicycle: 83 km
Train: 250 km
Average speed: 16,6 km/h
Total ascent: 1135 m
Riding time: 5:15 h
Weather: a bit of everything (except snow), 13 C

For the last day of this very long weekend I made yesterday two different plans:

• Plan A: ride up to the gondola for Sora terrace. Apparently a place where one can often see a sea of clouds. But not today… thanks to their live feed on YouTube I could check and it was within the clouds for the entire day. 
• Plan B: ride (again) to Lake Nojiri. Again because I had been here about a year ago already and really liked the lake, the landscape and the small villages. 

Plan B it was. 

In the morning it was still raining at the hight of my Minshuku but by the time I was ready to leave the rain has stopped. But streets were still damp. It was a leisurely ride downhill. Not too steep and mostly on very quiet roads. 

On the other side of the broad and very fertile valley I made it up the hills on a road that was so quiet that hardly any car passed but still it was a wide road. A few small villages thrown into the landscape. All apparently with minimal services only. 

I don’t think I saw a single restaurant anywhere. But I knew that this wouldn’t be a problem because the lake itself is a bit touristic. Low key, but touristic for local people to enjoy fishing, water sports…

I had phoned ahead to see if a small restaurant was open, and it was. Riding there it started to rain lightly, nothing to worry too much about. But about 1 min after arriving and sitting in the warm room , rain started to pour down. While I ate my Curry rice and an extremely tasty tomato salad (of local tomatoes), the rain stopped and even a shy sun was making some intermittent appearance.

While riding around the lake I had a feeling like there was something wrong with my rear wheel. And there was. The wheel had lost most of its air. I tried pumping it up with my small pump, but either that pump is so small that only microscopic amounts of air enter or I did something wrong, it didn’t seem that the wheel was gaining any air. So I continued riding carefully until the next village along the lake where I asked at a few watersport shops and the third one (that was actually closed) I found a bike pump. With that proper pump I managed to pump it up. It seemed that it was leaking air from a lot of microscopic holes on the side of the tire. But I checked during my ride (there would have been the opportunity to take a train back to Nagano) and it seemed that the air was now holding. Will need to observe that. The tire is less than a week old and tubeless.

D4 Rainy monkeys

Route: Hakuba - Nagano - Yudanaka onsen - Shibu onsen
Bicycle & walking: 8 km
Bus: 42 km
Train: 30 km
Average speed: 7,7 km/h
Total ascent: 316 
Riding time: 1:04 h
Weather: rainy and cold for most of the day, 10 C

The original plan for today was to cycle from Hakuba to Shibuonsen. Something that in the map (to me) looked very far , but actually doesn’t seem to be so unreasonable also because at least one of the roads out of Hakuba to Nagano is mostly downhill. I wouldn’t have taken that one though, because I feared too much traffic. In the end I did take that road, but with my bicycle as safely as possible stored away in the trunk of a highway bus. The owner of my hotel in Hakuba kindly drive me in his  van to the bus station so I only got a few drops of rain just the way from the door to the car. But still even that was wet. 

While in the summer I might not mind some rain (see second day around Fuji a few months ago), with temperatures below 10 C and needing to ride through the mountains, taking my bike wasn’t an option. Luckily there are a few busses every day between Hakuba and Nagano. 

This is a landscape as seen from the bus, and so similar to Classical Japanese paintings. 

I had briefly considered cycling from Nagano, but it was still raining and just seemed miserable to ride through that wetness for hours. So instead I took a train. My bike was allowed to sit in the reserved car (the only place where I found a reasonable spot to store it), but I had to go to the unreserved car as I didn’t pay the 300 Yen extra fee. 

In Yudanaka onsen station I reassembled the bike, repacked my luggage and changed into cycling clothes and then slowly set out through the train to my accommodation of the night. A Minshuku with onsen. 

I arrived here around 12:00 and in a first was already allowed into my room. Otherwise there are strong rules in Japan that you cannot enter your room before 15:00. However, I only dropped my luggage and got on my way to have lunch in the restaurant pretty close to the Minshuku. 

I was actually surprised to see on Google maps so many restaurants close to this Minshuku which isn’t in the central part of the small village a Shibuonsen. Hi recycling to the chosen restaurant, I realized that it was on the path to the snow monkey park. Anyway, I had lunch first as it was still raining and frankly time for lunch. Luckily afterwards the rain had stopped so I cycled a little bit further up the road until reaching the entrance to the path leading to the snow monkey park. 

Observing these monkeys, chill in the air, hot onsen water is really intriguing. Officially they are wild animals, and they are. But they are also not so wild because essentially, they are being fed by the park administration to make sure that they come and have their hot bath every day. 

But still, who doesn’t love some monkeys, chilling in the hot water and grooming each other.

I had been here a few years ago, may be in 2017, in the winter when there was still some snow. But those monkeys are equally funny without the snow.

After seeing my share of monkeys taking a hot bath, it was time for me to walk back to my bicycle, which is about the 2 km walk through a nice forest, and enjoy my own onsen in my Minshuku. The onsen can be visited also as a day spa and only has one big outside pool. No inside pool at all. Which is fine by me. Again no view though. Although it was only one outside pool, it actually kind of areas of different temperature. Very,  very hot close to where the hot onsen water is flowing into the pool and a little bit cooler in the farthest away corner of the pool.I relaxed a bit, relaxed more in my room, and then had dinner downstairs. 

For tomorrow it seems that the rain will stop, but it will still be a very cloudy day. I haven’t fully decided what to do tomorrow, but I will cycle to Nagano station, which isn’t actually that far at all, and then take a Shinkansen back to Tokyo to end this five day long weekend in Nagano Prefecture. 

D3 to Hakuba

Route: Azamino to Hakuba and a a bit beyond
Bicycle: 61 km
Average speed: 15,6 km/h
Total ascent: 785 m
Riding time: 3:54 h
Weather: cloudy, not so windy and quite cold, 11 C

When I planned this ride, I started with the hotel reservations, instead of the cycling routes. Which has led to the first three hotels being actually rather close to each other. Somehow I thought when I was looking at the map that there was a larger distance between them. Thus the basic ride today from A to B was only 41 km and with an elevation gain of only 420 m. I always thought that Hakuba was high in the mountains as it is a famous ski resort, and well it is at nearly 1000 m of elevation, but the valley around it more or less from Matsumoto onwards already is at a quite high elevation.

However I took it easy and took the direct route with the idea that once in Hakuba I could add a few extra kilometers and a few extra elevation meters from here and without my rather heavy luggage. 

Riding here again I took a lot of pictures of mountains. Actually mostly one mountain, the one behind Hakuba.

Wherever possible I took small country road although the main road that Komoot planned for me wasn’t  too busy either. But if I can have a reasonable small road I’ll go with the small one. 

Coming up to Hakuba one passes two very scenic mountain lakes:

I was at my accommodation around 12:00 just at the same time as another guest, and could leave my heavy luggage here. From here I went into Hakuba, a ski resort town but for Japanese standards a very well maintained one. I wanted to eat curry udon and searched for udon on goose maps. The place I found was quite upmarket and didn’t have curry udon (it had soba but had actually run out). However they had an excellent Katsudon. It was crisp and the coating had an intense taste. Never had something similar. 

After lunch I went up a street to a valley and mountain behind Hakuba. A road that leads apparently nowhere (well, probably to a small hotel) up and up. I didn’t make it up all the way, and called it a day shortly after reaching the hight of 1000 m.

A bit above this view if the river I returned downhill and stopped midway through at an onsen. This onsen only has a rotenburo and one would think that it should have a nice view into the mountains instead, no view at all. Surrounded by wooden walls. Not really sure why they might be needed. With a bit of planning this new (!) onsen could have been overlooking the river and there is nothing in the other side of the river. But probably Japanese aren’t so interested in viewing landscape while in the onsen. That’s the only explanation I have why so many onsen in theoretically good locations end up with no view at all. 

Anyway, the onsen itself was nice. A rather large outside pool (just one, but this is more like a small onsen in the countryside) with areas at different temperature depending on distance from the very hot waterfall of onsen waters. 

Cycling back down I came by this commemorative place for the 1998 Nagano Olympics. I had no idea that even Hakuba was part of those Olympics. 

D2 Around Matsumoto

Route: Matsumoto - Azumi
Bicycle: 43 km
Average Speed: 12 km/h
Total Ascent: 369 m
Riding Time: 3:34 h
Weather: sunny but fresh and again very windy (headwind), 19 C

Today was mainly dedicated to sightseeing: Matsumoto castle.

Nearly 30 years ago I was here the previous time. Traveling after my 4 month practical training at Riken in Wakoshi I had a few weeks free and visited a hiking friend if my father who lives somewhere close to Matsumoto. On the first day we went to an event on what I think was lake Suwa (where I was yesterday) where small lanterns were floating on the lake. On the next day I was on my own in Matsumoto and visited the castle. 

What I remember must about my visit to Matsumoto was my departure. I went to the train station to get my ticket and back then it was a much smaller train station than now. So the guy at the ticket office saw me walking towards his window from far away and with each step I took towards him he grew more and more preoccupied. So much that once I reached his window he had already crossed both his arms (typical gesture in Japanese to say something is prohibited / not possible…) and managed to say 2 words: “No English”. But I had my sentence in Japanese already prepared what I wanted. The terror on his face I still remember.

Japan and Matsumoto has come a long way since then. But I also don’t remember so many tourists. Today in the castle it was essentially one long queue through the entire castle because the stairs are narrow and steep. Some incredibly steep. 

Around the castle there was a soba festival with very long queues but I got a 10 Yen piece (for 500 Yen)

I think I departed from the castle around 13:00 and started my relatively short ride if the day. But with the late start and yet again a very strong headwind it took the entire day. 

Well I also stopped along the way to take a lot of pictures of mountains with snow:

Still fascinated by all these mountains. Why did I never realize just how many mountains there are in Japan? I always knew it, because it’s one of the reasons why most of the population is concentrated in a small , coastal part of Japan, but still, until now I haven’t realized what this actually means. And I think that unless I start hiking , and activity I don’t like at all, I won’t really realize. There are so many areas of Japan where one could walk for days on end without getting into touch with civilization. Does that exist in the Alps? 

I also stopped at a lake famous for its wild swans that come here from Siberia for the winter, but weren’t here now. 

The last tourist spot of the day was thus Wasabi farm. And I have to admit , I did NOT eat any wasabi. Just don’t really like it.  Had an apple pie and warm apple juice instead.

From there I continued along the river on what is practically a bicycle road and then up through a Forrest filled with weekend houses to my temple logging for tonight. A Korean Buddhist temple with Korean food.

D1 towards Matsumoto

Route: Kazunumabudokyo to Lake Suwa
Bicycle: 110 km
Train: 130 km
Average Speed: 17.3 km/h
Total Ascent: 1470 m
Weather: sunny and fresh, with a feisty headwind all day, 17 C

It’s a long weekend in Japan and I added an other 2 PTO days making it a super long weekend. 

Before it gets too cold, I decided to come to Nagano Prefecture. This time, not so much around Nagano city, but in the valley of Matsumoto instead. Today I got up before 5 o’clock in the morning, in order to take a train to Takao around 5:30, and then from there another train to Yamanashi Prefecture. I started my ride at Kazunumabudokyo, a train station, just at the entrance of the valley of Kofu, from where one has a very nice view over the entire valley and the vineyards.

I had been here last year in the summer, with a group from Meetup by train, where we visited together some vineyards, actually, not really a vineyard, but a field of grapes, where one could pluck ones own grapes and eat them there. Before that I had absolutely no idea that the region around Kofu is famous in Japan for its wine.

Initially, it was all downhill, until reaching Ryuo from where, unfortunately it is all uphill and a lot of uphill, as you can see from the Strava, nearly 1400 m of elevation. And that’s because although on Google maps all this looks like one big valley, it actually isn’t and one has to cycle up to the lower slopes of Yatsugadake, literally a mountain with 8 peaks, and definitely a majestic one.

I’m still amazed by the amount of mountains everywhere, and took way too many pictures of mountains, which truth to be told, as pictures don’t look so impressive. 

As impressive as these mountains may be, none that overbearing like Fujisan. Even from deep and Yamanashi prefecture, at Fujimi, you can see clearly in the distance Mount Fuji topping every single mountain around it, and standing in solitude.

All that climbing, albeit gradually, was a lot of climbing and I came up to an elevation of over 1000 m but one is still being surrounded by mountains and it feels like cycling actually in the valley. It also wasn’t only all the climbing there was also a fierce headwind the entire day. So I have clearly gained my relax time now in the onsen of my Ryokan here in Matsumoto.

Originally, my plan was to cycle all the way to Matsumoto, which is about 130 km and sounded kind of doable when I was planning the long weekend. But also, I got a pretty early start, I was not able to finish the right, so instead, I changed my endpoint to Lake Suwa, which has a nice cycling lane around most of the lake, and even from there when can see Mount Fuji in the distance. Admittedly, in real life, it looked bigger and way more visible, than on this photo.