From Hiroshima it was a short trip to Miyajima island, with the 30km journey being covered by tram, train and ferry. While the island is actually named Itsukushima, it is more commonly known as Miyajima, which is Japanese for shrine island. So, it is the famous shrine and iconic ‘floating’ torii gate that is the … Continue reading Miyajima Island – Days 47 & 48
Our temple stay at Kōya-san included breakfast, so we joined the line of foreigners in the dining area. We ate what we liked out of the set vegetarian breakfast, which wasn’t very much for some of us, and it looked surprisingly similar to dinner last night. The sitting on the floor to eat also doesn’t … Continue reading Koyasan to Okayama – Day 42
On Friday we headed to Kōya-san, several hours South of Osaka in the Kii mountain range, where we spent one night at a temple stay. Kōya-san is a temple town on Mount Kōya that was first settled in 819 by the monk Kukai who is known posthumously as Kōbō-Daishi – one of Japan’s most significant … Continue reading Koyasan – Day 41
Our time in the Iya Valley region had concluded and our next stop was onto Naoshima, a small island on the Seto Inland Sea. Naoshima is not far off Shikoku, but we needed to first return the hire car and then head to Uno where we had a short ferry ride to Naoshima. Like most … Continue reading Travel to Naoshima – Day 7
For our second day in the Iya Valley region all three of us families headed out to the historic hamlet of Ochiai (落合) in the eastern part of Iya Valley. Ochiai is of significance as it was registered as an important national preservation district due to its collection of traditional homes, terraced farm plots, and … Continue reading Ochiai Village and Zip Lines – Day 5
On our first full day in the Iya Valley region, we headed to the top of Mount Tsurugi. The other two families had booked in for white water rafting, and seeing it was a beautiful clear day we decided to head to Mount Tsurigi. Mount Tsurigi (剣山 Tsurugi-san) – meaning sword – is a 1,955 metre high … Continue reading Mount Tsurugi – Day 4
Rejuvenated by the soak in the onsen we departed early from Tsumago heading towards the Iya valley. A taxi from the hotel to Nagiso station we then train back to Okayama (four trains) where we pick up our hire car from Toyota car rental. It is also at the car rental where we meet up … Continue reading Travel to Iya Valley – Day 3
The Nakasendō (中山道) was a 534km trading route that connected Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto. It was one of the five routes of the Edo period 1603 and 1868. There were 69 stations – or post-towns – between Edo and Kyoto. Today (Wed 27 Sept) we walked the 8km stretch between Magome-juku, the forty-third post-town, … Continue reading The Nakasendō – 中山道 – Day 2
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