Yamanobe no michi
May 06, 2008
I haven’t been on a good hike in a long while and this, my very first Golden Week holiday, seemed like the perfect occasion. I was eyeing the very scenic 山之辺ã?®é?“ Yamanobe no michi, or “The road alongside mountains” and was planning out the 16km hike when the woman said she wanted to go too. This changes everything. Frankly I wasn’t sure if I could pull through with the 16km and she being the weakling that she is, would not stand a chance. So, we decided to make it a cycling tour!
We got up early and took a few trains out to Tenri, in Nara. From Tenri station, we rented a couple of bicycles from a very nice old man. He gave us maps, umbrellas, and tips because we were first timers here. The map he gave us was fairly good but like all the maps we saw of the area, it was lacking in details. And much to my surprise, renting bicycles in Japan is unlike back home – you don’t get a mountain bike, nor street bike, but a regular shopping bike with a basket and bell.
I am now going to look for a mountain bike because climbing uphill in a shopping bike is nasty. Gears! Gears! People, gears are a good thing! Gears are your friend when climbing uphill, or going downhill for that matter.
Anyway, since we were on bikes we couldn’t follow the foot path but detoured around some major sites. We stopped at many temples and historical sites. My favorite sites were the kofun, ancient Japanese burial mounds shaped like keyholes, or other shapes. From a distance, they appear like a hill but most of the bigger ones were surrounded by a moat.
The temples were nothing special -typical fare. The one temple I was really looking forward to was the “ruined temple at Nakayama”. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so much “ruined” as it was “dilapidated”. There were a couple of small wooden buildings in a rather dark wooded area.
The road itself is not a road per se. It’s more of a marked trail through a few cities and lots of farmland. It’s not well-marked and we did a few u-turns to find the way. We ended the tour at Sakurai city and stayed the night at a very quaint guest house run by a guy who writes books about the area and of Japanese history.
I thoroughly enjoyed biking through fields and farms and getting much needed fresh air. People were very friendly and greeted you as you biked by. Although it sporadically showered, the rain helped cool us off and it was a much better alternative to sunlight beating down on us.
We went through the entire course in about 6 hours with many stops for pictures and rest. I will most definitely be coming back here and going on foot – there were many sites that we missed including some waterfalls near the mountains.
May 8th, 2008 at 17:56
Jezza, I love my wife dearly as you do yours buuuttttt… there are few things worse (i`m scared to use the word annoying) than the last minute “Can i come as well?”. But luckily, seems like you had fun anyway!!
May 8th, 2008 at 20:19
Be careful. They can smell fear.
We did have fun. I spent all day today wishing I was back biking through farms and smelling horse manure. Nature is awesome.