Bicycle: 33 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.
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