28.8.2018 - Day 13

 

Today was a jampacked day. First we headed off to Himeji. Target was to see the castle. Since I’ve seen it twice already and it was hot I let Zelma go alone. Afterwards we departed with first express train for Takeda which is in city of Asago in northern Hyogo prefecture.

Asago is well known for its “Castle in the Sky” aka Takeda castle which was our goal. Takeda castle today are just wall remains and it got its nickanme as in spring and fall, if you watch from surrounding hills, you will see the valley fill with low cloud coverage in early morning with only the castle walls being above. This makes it look like the castle is flowing. On the way I noticed that the rail used to be was downsized from its glory days, but the buildings were mix of old traditional houses and new construction. In general it seemed to be in much better condition than other areas of Japan. Makes me curious what, except its historical heritage, is the region prospering on.

When we arrived we were informed that the bus service was not running as a landslide, due to the typhoons last week, blocked the one way drive for the bus. So we could take taxi or climb to the castle. Obviously we choose to climb. It was a steep climb and the humidity was high so soon we were swimming in our own pool of sweat. The occasional water droplet from the overcast did not help at all. When we reached the entrance we were met with friendly staff. Interestingly it looked like local seniors were running pretty much everything about the place. That is one way they stay active. They had a survey to find out who came from where. Apparently I was the first one from Easter Europe.

After recuperating we started exploring the castle ruins which offered great view on surrounding mountains and valleys. Needless to say that I took a lot of pictures and made a use of binocular. Towards the end there seemed to be a model photo shoot or something that firebombed from distance, or at least we tried for fun. We walked down to the train station and boarded the next express for Amanohashidate.

After switching the train from JR to private rail company we traveled for over an hour through local communities in northern Kyoto. As previous trip from Himeji to Takeda the land showed that it was doing relatively well for the most part. The train ride seemed to me to be mostly downhill towards the sea.

Immediately upon arrival we went to Amanohashidate View Land and took the monorail up the mountain to see the third great view of Japan and hence seeing all three of them on our trip. At the top we learned abou Hiryukan, which is the view of the skyward dragon that you can see if you look on Amanohashidate upside down. I took loot of pictures and some videos before departing back down, not too long before closing. On our way down we talked with a couple from Osaka on the monorail about our travels and other common things.

As we passed on the sandbar there was still one shop with bicycles open. After a bit of hesitation we decided to rend the bikes and had a blast riding through. Since it was late we had most of Amanohashidate for ourselves. Funnily enough at the end we met our Osaka friends who took the boat around the back of Amanohashidate and were about to start to walk back to the train station. After returning we eat at a restaurant next to the rail station and I had a selection of local sashimi. Finally we boarded an express back to Kyoto to complete our day trip.