Shogun Trail

On the afternoon of the 10th, we finally met up with Grandpa and our guide Daniel Glinz, whom Bernard had known for a long time, and who was his guide back in 2006. The kids were ecstatic to see Grandpa and quickly warmed to Daniel, too. While Bernard took a nap, the erst of us went for a walk from the hotel to the castle in Nagoya. Maybe the French word chateau is a better description than castle. The main building is typically Japanese with curved Asian roofs. It's striking that it's tiny compared to the vast walls and moat that surround it. After the walk, food, of course sushi, yummy!
Our first full day in Japan was easy so that Grandpa Bernard could get over his jetlag. That didn’t mean we did nothing, far from it. We spent a large part of the day at a park with historical buildings. They were not reproductions. Instead, originals had been dismantled at their original sites and reassembled at a site just outside Nagoya.
Now, on day 3, we really got moving with an 8km walk from Magomejuku to Tsumagojuku. This was a small part of the route from Kyoto to Tokyo that during the Shogun times was used to travel to pay homage to the emperor.
The route is, though, pretty rolling hills that are covered in trees, and there are stunning parts with fire red Japanese maples since its autumn here.
At each end of the walk, there are villages, but they look and feel very different. Magomejuku is filled with local tourists when we are there at the start of our walk, whereas Tsumagojuku is almost devoid of tourists, or anyone else for that matter. It’s also larger and quainter. It's very strange that there are crowds of locals at one, but not the other.
On the 8km walk it’s also noticeable that there are very few locals who do the walk, and Daniel suggests this might be because the locals are often on organised 2 or 3 day tours.
Now we head towards our next overnight stop in a Ryokan, which is a traditional Japanese hotel, where we will sleep in traditional rooms and eat traditional food. Report on that tomorrow.Read more