Hakone

We were up early to catch the Romancecar express service from Tokyo to Hakone station. After a short ride with some impressive scenery we arrived at Hakone station and as we were staying overnight in a traditional ryokan we left the majority of our luggage in a locker at the station. Fortunately I had planned ahead and kept a good stock of the tiny 100 yen coins which are vital for loading the locker and for allowing it to be opened tomorrow.

We then went to the bus stop for the start of the Hakone Loop. The Hakone loop is a route that circles the main Hakone region using various types of transport with some great scenery and if you are lucky views of Mt Fuji. We were unlucky and did not see anything of Mt Fuji.

We joined the queue for the bus to take us up the steep route through the mountains to Motohakone at the base of Lake Ashi. We walked around the village and visited the Hakone-jinja shrine which has the famous floating torii on the banks of the lake

We had a much better view of the floating torii on the next leg of the loop which was a trip up Lake Ashi in a pirate ship. A bit of a bizarre experience in cruise ships that look like old pirate galleons but there were great views.  Unfortunately, still no sign of Mt Fuji due to the cloud cover

When we disembarked from the ship at the northern end of the Lake we decided to continue the next part of the loop, even though our ryokan was in a different direction. We took the ropeway cable car up Mt Hakone to Owakudani or the smoking crater, which has many sulphur smelling rising steam vents coming from the volcanic activity below.

We retraced our steps and to the bottom of the ropeway and got a bus in the direction of our ryokan in the Sengokuhara region. We found the hotel and dropped our bags as we were too early and strolled through the local streets until we came upon the Renee Lalique Museum. It all seemed slightly incongruous to find hundreds of beautiful glass works displayed in this private collection, which is one of the largest in the world. It was a very calming atmosphere in the museum and great way to spend a couple of hours.

We then headed back to our ryokan as our time in their onsen was approaching. We returned and had a very relaxing hour in the heated spring pool, both indoor and outdoor. Quite an experience. After that we dressed in the traditional costumes that were provided and went through to the dining room for an amazing tradition meal where the small plates just seemed to keep on coming. The ryokan provided an excellent vegetarian and pescatarian options and all washed down with sake. We retired to our room absolutely full and slept soundly on the futons.

In the morning, after a similarly lavish breakfast we headed out to find that the weather had turned to torrential rain. Not uncommon in the mountains. We donned our raincoats and headed back to the bus stop to take us back to the main part of the loop. However, due to the bad weather the ropeway was all closed for the day and so we boarded a bus to take us back to Hakone station.

From Hakone we got the train to Odawara, changed the time of the Shinkansen as we were much earlier  than expected and rode our first bullet train to Kyoto. The bullet train was exactly as I expected: very fast, smooth and a perfect journey.