D1 Nagano to Nozawaonsen

Route: Nagano to Nozawaonsen
Bicycle: 70 km
Train: 250 km
Average Speed: 14.5 km/h
Total ascent: 1050 m
Riding time: 4:30 h
Weather: Warm, sunny and just splendid, 20 C

Another long weekend, again good weather... actually quite warm for early November in Nagano... and off I went again to Nagano. A few weeks ago, I had organized several weekends away booking even double accomodations in two differents places where I want to ride, so I could cancel based on the weather. The other option for this weekend was Shizuoka... but Nagano in early November is definitely the place to be. 

I got up early in the morning... but it takes me quite some time to actually get started, so finally I didn't arrive to Nagano station until shortly after 10:00 and rolled out just before 10:30. There are different ways from Nagano to Nozawaonsen. Obviously the easiest would be a train... however that isn't the plan here. The second easiest would be just to follow the river to the foot of the ascent up to Nozawaonsen... boring... so instead I planned to visit yet again Nojiri lake but with the late start, lack of sleep, and the ascent that is needed to even get to the lake I got tired mid way through, so shortened the ride a little bit. Still came pretty close to the lake... but not to the lake itself. But road through really nice autumn colours in the countryside. 

I always knew that at the end there was a hill awaiting me... I just didn't realize how much of a hill it was. It seemed endless to my already tired body... and even when I reached this sign of Nozawa onsen, there wasn't actually yet any sign of the village itself. For that I needed to cycle a little bit further uphill until a higher lying valley came into view. 

But the lodge I had reserved wasn't in town... but rather in the ski area of Nozawa onsen. So it continued up and up for me. However once arrived, I was rewarded by this nice sunset over the Japanese alps in a light evening breeze: 

My hotel itself was called "Lodge Hahnenkamm" like the ski descent in Kitzbühel. An other hotel up there was called "Pension Schnee". Very Austrian everything. 

I was the only guest for the entire weekend and the hotel owners were extremly kind. They drove me down to the village (which in meters isn't very far, but a steep descent), where I went to the only onsen in town with a rotenburo... but that was a very nice onsen: Furusato no yu. I had a nice relaxing bath there. It has 2 pools inside. One called "lukewarm" at 41-42 C and one called "hot" at 43-45 C. And a rotenburo which seemed to be cooler than the lukewarm option. The hot option initially might seem to hot, but after a while was actually quite enjoyable. As long as you don't move around in the hot water. 

The city itself, being an onsen town is actually dotted with onsen, aparently all free of charge and the ones I saw all looking very nice... but none of them have a rotenburo... and if I can have a rotenburo that is definitely where I am headed. They looked nice though. Very traditional. 

After the bath I had dinner in town, then called again my hotel owner, who came down to the village to pick me up again. 

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.

SW2023 D4 Kinugawaonsen - Nikko

Route: Kinugawaonsen - Nikko
Bicycle: 33 km

Train: 160 km
Average speed: 11,5 km/h
Total ascent: 537 m
Riding time: 2:50 h
Weather: Sun, some clouds, still too hot and humid, 26C (per Wahoo)

For the last day of this rather short Silver Week (only the Monday was a public holiday... but I took the Tuesday as well), I had originally planned to cycle from Kinugawa onsen up to lake Chuzenji, the lake above Nikko and then down through the mountains to Kanuma and take a train from there back to Tokyo. However my stomach wasn't happy with me and it was still sooooo hot and humid... that I changed my plan and did sightseeing in Nikko instead. 

The main shrine, Toshogu was incredibly busy with school classes. I arrived there around 10:00 and there was one class after an other. Probably all from the same school. Maybe it was just bad timing. But I do remember a visit a few years ago to Nikko where this same shrine was also totally overwhelmed by Japanese tourist groups. I know this is an important Shrine for its history, but with so many groups it is hard to enjoy it. 

Strangely it got much quieter up to the burial of the Tokugawa shogun and on the way down I took this very quaint picture of the roofs of all the shrine buildings shining in their golden splendor through the forest. 

Nearly all tourists are gathered at this one spot and although the Nikko Futarasan jinja is only a few meters walking away, over there everything was very quiet. 

It even had a deity for patisserie chefs (the god is holding the branch of a specific citrus tree). 

I had lunch closeby in an other soba place (a lot of soba and udon these past few days) and then returned to my bicycle. 

It was still relatively early in the day, but I was clearly not in form to continue cycling so instead I had found an onsen on google maps. It was quite close (by bicycle) from the shrines, but in a very quiet area. So quiet, that the onsen doesn't have a reception desk. But rather a vending machine for the tickets and a small box in which to drop the ticket before entering the bath. It has a tub inside and a rotenburo with views of a garden. I had the entire onsen to myself for most of the time. Very relaxing indeed. 

The ride today was quite short, only about 28 km, but it seemed more exhausting that I would have expected for such a short ride, even with the heat... however looking at Strava shows over 500 m of elevation, which were accumulated in less than 20 km of cycling (the initial part was downhill). So that's pretty steep (for me at least), however it wasn't anywhere so steep that it actually felt steep or that I needed to push the bike. 

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.