SW D4 more art and a castle around Tokamachi

Route: Tokamachi area
Bicycle: 44 km
Total ascent: 582 m
Average speed: 12,9 km/h
Riding time: 3:24 h
Weather: hot and humid, some rain, 30 C

Today’s highlight was not art, but a castle.

And I nearly missed it for the third time. I have been here now three times once in 2015 by car and then two years ago in 2022 by bicycle and both times I was really close to this castle, but both times I did not make it up to the castle. The year we came by car, we went to a part of the art installation that is only a few hundred meters below the castle, but if I remember correctly, it started raining, so we probably didn’t drive up to the castle. Two years ago, I came again to this area on a very hot and humid day and had struggled up the hill to a certain point, not actually with the goal to reach the castle, but those aren’t installations below it. But I gave up on the road junction and rode downhill instead. Today again, I was at risk of not reaching the castle. The initial road is crazy steep so I pushed up the bike for most of it. Then at the road junction where I had given up the last time, it levels off a little bit, but at that point it started raining. Not the first rain of the day but the first strong rain. Luckily, I made it under a tree and in combination with my rain, jacket and helmet cover I stayed reasonably dry.The rain didn’t last very long, which was kind of clear from the type of clouds today. So I waited it out for maybe 10-15 minute, And then restarted my ride. Originally, I hadn’t even planned to ride up to the castle, instead, I was interested in the art installations.But once I reached the entrance to the art installations, I remembered that I had been here already back in the day. So no need to repeat this again that instead, I continued uphill and was greeted by this very asiatic view. One can easily imagine it as an ink drawing.

But let’s start the day at the beginning. The first artwork was really close to my ryokan, So I kind of felt compelled to go and see it.

Well, I would say that the bear alert sign on the road leading up to it was more artistic than this piece of art.

After that, it was down through the rice and soba fields and the next stop was this artistic parking lot, which I kind of like and have visited in every single visit to this area.

This time I even saw how it looks from the side.

The next stop was one of the artworks I had been recommended the other day at the museum. And it was nice, but didn’t make the highlight of the day. While I was there it rained a little bit on and off, very light rain, but still I did hide below some trees and waited it out.

At this point, I had become rather hungry, and I had missed to buy some snacks at a conbini. So I decided to ask Google sensei for some restaurant recommendations, and it came up with a very good suggestion for a soba restaurant. Both tasty and very nice settings. I would say this was highlight number two of the day.

What definitely did not feel like a highlight, or even vaguely interesting, was the artwork right in front of the small castle. I get it, that the stone is formed like the mountains in front, but with all the clouds, the mountains weren’t visible, and overall the stone just seemed a stone among other stones.

 

From here it was mainly downhill. I made a stop at the local golf course which hosts another big part of the art exhibition. But even the outside artworks were today closed. Not really sure why that would be necessary.