A day around Lake Biwa, the largest lake in Japan

About twenty miles North of Kyoto is the largest lake in Japan where we arrived yesterday when it was raining. Today however it was just rather grey and cloudy and not really conducive to good photos but we cannot change the weather.

After a Weetabix breakfast and banana in the room we collected the car but we needed to buy some fuel for the car and we arrived in the Esso petrol station and two staff rush out shouting greetings before taking control of everything and we spent a grand total of Yen 4000, about £ 28 to fill the tank,  and then headed off in the direction of the old city of Sakamoto where we discovered that parking was extremely limited unfortunately and so we could not park and walk around this old historic town. Some while ago Noel purchased for his Sony Camera a stand to put on the car dashboard and we gave it a go and hope the pictures are good as holding the camera for video is not the best thing you can do.


Sakamoto flourished as the temple town for Hieizan Enryakuji Temple, including the homes for monks from approximately 50 different temples, and the townscape retains the elegance of that history even today. The monk's homes have incredible gardens, with beautiful azalea, crimson leaves and moss combining to form a wonderful symphony of colour. Furthermore, the Sakamoto region was designated as a Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings in 1997.
We could have parked at the top of the hill in one of the Temple car parks but it was a steep downhill to the old town and a bit to far to walk and the weather was still rather grey and not good for photos still.

So we continued going down the West side of the Laker and eventually stopped at a 7-11 to but some sandwiches for lunch and then decided we would head for the mountains overlook the Lake. So up we went with signs everywhere about snow chain which you would need at the winter time and though a number of tunnels and noticed some landslides and trees down which presumably happened during the recent typhoon as there were workman in number of places clearing up the mess. We stopped for or snack lunch in a small side road and then headed back down the hill where we crossed the bridge and went down the Eastern Side of the Lake until we reached almost the bottom and then re crossed the Lake in the direction of the Hotel. The lake has over 118 rivers leading in to it and it provides drinking water for both Kyoto and also Otsu where the Hotel is and the lake is full of fish and a paradise for the Japanese fishermen whilst there are a number of boats including a paddle steamer which does lake tour during the day and at night.

We also were aware of the colourful water fountains which are on every night but its about 2.4 miles to walk in each direction and no place to park and so did not visit but looked at them from the top floor of the Hotel through double glazed glass and so no good for photos..
There is an exhibition of what they call English Housing on the site by Panasonic the Electric Company which was accompanied by some conferences and the car park was now complete full.
For dinner we tried the Buffet but when explaining the No Garlic etc etc, they checked with the Chef and it would appear there was garlic on most foods even garlic on the garlic it seems. They then directed us to the A La Carte French Restaurant where we got a nice expensive steak  and lets not talk about the price. Ah well this is Japan