Nakasendō Diary

Today the sun was frying us while walking. Sunny and 34℃ during lunch time. After a few kilometres we decided to make our backpacks a bit lighter and sent home some not necessary stuff like sleeping bags and some clothing. Each bag probably is about 1kg lighter now. The route let us through more bigger city streets with many trucks passing by, so not...

Today is like to keep it short as it was a long day.. 長い一日でしたので、ブログは短くする。 Basically today was a good but quite hard day as we had to walk many small mountains up and down – which were super steep! まとめて言うと、峠のつぎも峠は続いて、大変でした(笑) 急坂は本当に多くてビックリしました。 十三峠って変な名前だな〜と思って。なぜその名前になったのは後で分かりました。 But we did it all and even could have some local “Gohei-mochi” which is a rice cake dipped in sauce and grilled....

After our departure in Tsumago-juku we had to hike through another mountain which had two lovely waterfalls. 妻籠宿に出てからすぐ山に入りました。とても素敵な「男滝女滝」で心までスッキリした。 Old tea house in the mountain My husband actually wanted to quit and us to go home yesterday, but I’m not here to stop because it’s “boring” or “so much pain” so I wanted to even continue alone if necessary. However after a discussion he also...

Today we also kept winding through the mountains usually along a big road and / or river. It was super hot – about 29℃ and the sun burned mercilessly down on us. 暑かった〜〜 30℃近くでした。 今日もずっと山と山の間に歩き続きた。 The “Ono waterfall” was so beautiful that we stopped for a quick picnic there. Yesterday’s bar granny gave us this local specialty – houba-zushi – some rice with veggie...

My foot felt even better this morning. We started in the crisp blue sky and headed straight for the mountain Torii-toge. Compared to the first big mountain Usui-toge this one was pretty breezy to get through. 足のアキレス腱はどんどん治ってきた〜 嬉しすぎ〜〜 出発の際、雲はゼロ！真っ青の空は気持ちよかったー すぐに鳥居峠を登りました。碓氷峠と比べると本当に楽チン！ Drinkable water from the mountain / feels like garden Eden! After the hike we passed all the way through the mountains down to Kiso-Fukushima...

Again a beautiful day although rainy season started a week ago. We took the train to Seba where we left off yesterday and started our journey. You don’t even know how happy I am to continue (cry emoji). My foot swelling seems to have nearly gone and I hope the weird feeling in my Achilles will be gone soon too. When I walk I...