Shimanami Kaido 🚴‍♂️

We decided to do a little bit of cycling for the next two days, so we jumped on a Shinkansen for the first time heading to Onomichi city 🚄
It was impressive how smooth the train ride was, and the punctuality everyone knows from Japan’s transport system was again confirmed 👌

Once arrived, we rented bicycles to start the Shimanami Kaido 🚲
The Shimanami Kaido is a 70-kilometers long road that connects Japan's main island of Honshu to the island of Shikoku, passing over six small islands.
A painted blue line on the road marks the recommended route for cyclists, so it is very easy to follow 🤗 In Japan every town has its own special drain. Such a simple but cute idea to make the world prettier 🩷

We cycled up the Mount Shirataki to visit the temple of Five hundred arhats. At the top of the mountain, there were many stone Buddha statues of different sizes with various poses and expressions. The panoramic view from up there was really spectacular! A monk living there was so kind and offered us a bag of chips- he probably saw how we suffered a bit to come all the way up… 😂

One of the cute little towns, Setoda, is famous all over Japan for its lemons - so we had to try a cake and an ice cream 🍋 It was yummy!

We spent the night sleeping on a futon in a Ryokan located on Omishima island, half distance from our goal. The hostel was cosy and the garden very beautiful 🪴
Following the recommendation of our host, we had dinner at one of the oldest restaurants located nearby and had Takoyaki again. The old lady running the restaurant was so cute, she has been cooking for the last 50 years 🥰

The next day we visited another temple in the morning and had our last stop at Yoshiumi Rose Park, a garden with a variety of 400 different kinds of roses 🌹

Afterwards we ended our cycling trip in Imabari City. Here we took a bus to go back to the city we started from and a train to our next destination.

It was a great two days of cycling 🚴‍♀️🚴‍♂️ Along the way, we enjoyed the stunning views of the sea and islands, the nature, crossing the impressive modern bridges and visiting some of the islands' small villages 🌳Read more