Takayama To Hakone

Today was mostly spent travelling, from Takayama, high up in the Japanese Alps down to Hakone just a hour from Tokyo, near the southern coast.

Our first train followed the course of the Miyagawa river, down through the narrow valley, the steep hills lined with evergreens and we drifted soporifically along with it, three weeks of travelling having caught up with us completely now.

Eventually we came out to the plains near Nagoya, where we were given a rude awakening by the hustle and bustle of a big city station after the sleepier, more rural towns of the last few days.

We had an hour for lunch before our next train to Odawara and from there to Hakone-Yamato where we arrived late afternoon.

Our hotel sits on the hillside just out of shot in the main blip, the biggest, most touristy one we’ve stayed in. The area around the station here is the stopping off point for trips up the nearby volcano then down to Lake Ashi, of which more tomorrow.

We didn’t do much more than recover from the journey in our room before heading out for a meal in a udon / soba noodle restaurant where the noodles came in broth, with tonkatsu(breaded pork) and tempura and miso soup and were just the warm, comforting food we needed.

The sign in our bathroom (In extras) made me smile: not sure what other uses guests might have put it to!