Bicycle: 76 km
Total Ascent: 1,025 m
Average speed: 15.7 km/h
Riding time: 4:49 h
Weather: Sunny and cool, 6C
For today I chose the "Kyoto heart" route, called so because of it's shape on Strava... only that I added Kifune to it as well. The initial mountain was the same as yesterday, but I took a slight different and maybe a bit better way from my hotel in the South of Kyoto to the North. Including a brief stop at a cycling "school", aka a park for kids to learn traffic rules... but it wasn't as nice as the park in Wadabori in Tokyo. So from there further up into the mountains on this small and very quiet road through the forrest.
On the downhill I passed again a natural spring which seems to have very good water, as today as well as yesterday there were people who had come by car to fill up many many bottles... but as I only had one bottle to fill I got mine without waiting. After some further downhill a new uphill awaited on a new route, part of the Kyoto heart. Also that road very, very quiet. But yellow on the map. But hardly any cars.
Then again downhill which brought me back closer to Kyoto and something like a suburb of Kyoto where I had decided to have lunch. I had seen on Google maps a "steak restaurant" that caught my eye. Rightfully so, the meat was excellent.
But the restaurant itself very strange. A place full of prohibitions: no smartphone while eating, no children, groups of people must come in one car, no perfume... They even said that they had to call the police because of perfume use. From the outside the place doesnt even look like a restaurant and does everthing to avoid to have customers... but then the food they prepare is excellent.
After lunch it was uphill again, to Kifune. A place I now recognize. When I was for the first time in Japan in 1995 I took a trip for maybe 1 - 2 weeks in July or August and visited - among other places - Kyoto. There I stayed in a youth hostel and in the evening they had organized to go and visit a festival with lanterns at some temples. I signed up and we went by bus there with a guide, as far as I remember. I never really knew where that place was, but when coming to Kifune today, I am pretty sure it was here. It's a small weekend town in a narrow valley in the hills North of Kyoto. I don't think people actually live there, but it has a lot of summer restaurants, that probably serve food on top of the river, probably a few ryokans. And a very relaxed atmosphere. There is a train station at the bottom of the entrance street to it, from where it is a few kilometers walk and quite a lot of people did the treck. In the New Year it will be many more.
Officially it is famous for its 2 shrines... but they are just your pretty average mountain village shrine. Nothing terribly special about them, but it is a great location to get into the nature not far from Kyoto city.
Then it was downhill again, nearly back to the lunch restaurant, and from there up the next valley and over to Ohara. To Ohara I had been before, once to visit the most famous temple there and once just passing through. In principle I wanted to have early dinner/late lunch there at the pickels factory, but I had such a good lunch at noon and it wasn't late enough for an early dinner, that I skipped that idea. Instead I added an other temple and a few more meters of climbing.
And finally it was all the way downhill to Kyoto and my hotel. With a brief stop at Shimogamo shrine at the confluence of Takano river and Kamo river. At this shrine there were also very serious preparations ongoing for the upcoming Hatsumode. A big parking lot (which will be too small for sure), a lot of food stalls and signs everywhere inside the shrine complex where to find what and where to go. But today still everything pretty quiet.
No comments:
Post a Comment