First of all let me mention the bathroom in the Hotel for the
last two nights which was probably the smallest we have encountered so far. It
was about 4ft X 6ft and contained a small bath and shower, a sink and a typical
Japanese loo which does everything from blow dry to bidet. We had our in-room breakfast
this morning of croissants, a plain bun, a cheesy type croissant and another
bun filled with fruit, all of which we bought at the station as one complete
pack. Howver the Jam with the croissant was nice.
AT 10.30 we were ready to leave and it had rained overnight
and the sky was overcast but never mind. We headed along the coast and went
through many tunnels and then noticed that the motorway came out of nowhere and
went on legfs out in to the sea then along the coast for about half a mile and
then back in to a tunnel. What engineering this is? Our route took us through
lots of little villages where hardly anyone was seen apart from the odd
housewife with shopping and very few vehicles. We stopped for a coffee at a convenience
store and overcame the equipment challenges and also purchased food for lunch
in case later we could not find some and so we had a couple of
sandwiches and a
small box of sushi.
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Lunch was by the side of the sea in an empty car park and then
we headed South in to the hills, we had expected an open road with views of the
mountains but the mountains were covered in fog or mist and at least half of
the journey was conducted in in Tunnels and so the anticipated views of the
mountains never materialised. However we kept going through mile after mile of
tunnels some open on the side and we assumed that this construction was to keep
the road open during the heavy snowfalls that happen here each year.
We reached Matsumoto around 5.20 pm and the Satnav nearly
found the Hotel which we eventually located and checked in. The room is fine
and bigger bathroom than yesterday. At around 6.30 we left the Hotel looking
for somewhere to eat, the Hotel did have a restaurant which we could use if all
else failed but lo and behold we came across an English Pub called the ‘Old
Rock’ and risked it and went inside and we both had Fish and chips and it was
really excellent.
This looks like a nice little town which we shall explore
tomorrow as well as the Castle which appears to be quite famous.
So overall a really good day but slightly disappointed we did
not get better views of the mountains which are still covered in snow.
