It was a cloudy morning with rain expected. At least the train ride would be undercover, even if the rest of the day looked like being cold and miserable. Off we went at about 7:30 for the Sagano Romantic Train Ride.
We arrived around 8:30, with plenty of time to board the first train at 9:00. I’d pre-booked two window seats in the second carriage, so Jane and I both got a good view and enjoyed the ride.
It’s a slow train that meanders through a narrow gorge, with a shallow river alongside and tunnels along the way. If we were lucky, we could spot some of the rafts coming down the river too. The ride took about 40 minutes each way.
Jane didn’t want to do the river trip, which was wise—even I wasn’t keen on such a cold day. Instead, we took the train back in exactly the same seats. There were others hoping for window seats, but those had all been booked well in advance.
We finished about a quarter to eleven and got off before the final stop to save ourselves some walking. The plan was to see the northern shrines, then work our way down to the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest.
Coming into the forest from the back meant it was much less crowded, so we could really enjoy it. With all that dense bamboo around us, we could see why it’s such a tourist attraction.
The crowds grew thicker as we headed towards the Tenryu-ji Temple grounds. Once inside, though, there were plenty of paths to wander along. Most of the tours went into the temple itself, but from the YouTube clips we’d seen, it looked like everything had been stripped out, leaving just the hall. We were more interested in the grounds, and I have to say they were amazing, with the bamboo forest behind them and mountains all around.
Afterwards, we wandered through the tourist streets towards the bridge, stopping for lunch along the way. Jane had some nice chicken dumplings and I had seafood dumplings. A nice lunch overall, and it turned out we were eating at the railway station we’d be using to get home, as we were taking a different train back.
We carried on down to the bridge for the necessary photographs. By then it was cold, wet and miserable, so by about 1:30 we’d made our way back to the station.
We decided to head back to Nishiki Market so Jane could enjoy looking for fabric and I could hunt for dinner. For me, that usually means seafood, though I always keep an eye out for chicken katsu, pork skewers or something similar for Jane. There’s certainly plenty of choice at Nishiki Market.
While we were there, we met the missionary sisters, out on this cold, wet day. We found out that there weren’t many local members and they didn’t get many meals from them, so we were able to help the sisters get something to eat. We left them happy and well fed.
We got back to the apartment at about 6:30, hit the sack and watched some TV, then relaxed in bed for the rest of the evening.
The next day was going to be a very long one, with an early start and somewhere to be by 7:00 in the morning. Definitely time for a rest!
