The old town of Kurashiki and a bridge too far

Wow, we awoke to a sky filled with blue and hardly a cloud in the sky,what a change from yesterday and should be good for visiting the old town of Kurashiki.
Following our in house breakfast, ie we make it ourselves as you can easily pay £25.00 in a Hotel and Noel will only have toast etc so we buy stuff from a supermarket and have breakfast in the room. The Royal Art Hotel is a very old Hotel and used to be owned by the Nikko Hotel Chain and somebody must have spent a lot of cash on this place and it has the art deco feel about the place and in the reception you can look up to internal roof about 12 stories high. It is also located right next to the old town and about 250 metres away and so off we trotted for a look around.

The Old town is quite large compared to some we have seen and there are little rivers running though it where you hire a boat complete with a Japanese boatman which is like a British punt and to complete the atmosphere you have to wear the round straw hat. We did not go on it but wandered around the complete area for about two hours and noticed some of the popular types of cafes you get where you can sit and rent a cat, or dog or sit with owls and even hedgehogs for a small price whilst drinking your tea or coffee. We don't like this idea although perhaps cats and dogs may not mind too much but owls and hedgehogs we are not sure about, however this is Japan. We saw a number of couples complete with photographic entourage moving around the area to have the pre marriage photos takes on the bridges and boats etc and some of the outfits were really spectacular.
For lunch we visited the local Family Mart which like 7-11 and Lawsons are small to medium size shops selling the most important things you might need from sandwiches to milk and they even do a range of hot meals from yakitori and bowls of various foods which are kept in a fridge and purchased then the counter assistant puts it in the microwave and bingo you have a quick hot meal of noodles and /or rice with a large choice of toppings. We only purchased some sandwiches as we planned to revisit the bridge that we came over yesterday evening  in the dark and pouring rain and drove the 15 miles or so back to another Hotel which is on a hill overlooking the bridge. This Hotel was located next to a fun park with all sorts of stuff going on but not for us. The bridge hops from Island to Island from Kurashiki for many miles and is a sight to behold. We then took a drive along the hill as we had also seen a sign for a lookout over the bridge and found the location and took some more photos, puts Walton on Thames bridge to shame.
'The Great Seto Bridge is 9368 Metres long and connects Honcho and Shikoku
The Bridge was built on April 10^th, 1988. It stretches  over the Bisan Seto National Park and multiple islands of the Seto Inland Sea.
The Seto Bridge is the common name for 6 double-decker bridges and 4 suspension bridges that connect Sakaide, Kagawa Prefecture and Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture. This is the largest  bridge in the world and includes suspension bridges, cable stayed bridges and truss bridges; the beautiful background of the Seto Inland Sea is a must-see. On Saturdays and holidays the bridge is illuminated, creating a romantic atmosphere.
The upper bridge consists of four lanes, constituting Seto Central Expressway, and the lower bridge is a double-decker bridge which serves the JR Honshi-Bisan Railway. The total length is 9368m, making it  the world’s longest road and railway-bridge. It can be seen even from  satellites.'

So with a view like this we sat and ate our sandwiches. We retuned to the Hotel around 16.00 for a well earned cup of tea and for Noel to update the smug photos albums and blog and then a short rest and then more time spent looking at the Hotels we have booked over the next few days. When we collected the car in Tokyo we were told that the Osaka Kansai Airport drop off had closed due to the recent bad typhoon and could we drop it at another place. This does not really suit us and so we have changed out Hotel in Osaka to one where we can get the bus to the airport and drop off the car early.
For dinner we had found in Trip-Adviser and Italian style restaurant which had good reports and so we visited and the owner/ Chef confirmed that the no Garlic etc etc would be fine and we both had an excellent meal and no after effects, even the bottle of Barolo was good. The back to the Hotel for a couple more episodes of Line of Duty