Odawara is where Sagami Bay meets the mountains, a city on the coast at the foot of the Hakone range, and for most riders heading up to the Turnpike it is the jumping-off point: a big station town with fuel on every arterial road, fish restaurants near the harbour and the last flat kilometres before the climb. The Hayakawa river runs out of the mountains here, and on its southern side the road begins to rise almost immediately.
The town's centrepiece is Odawara Castle, home of the Later Hōjō clan, who ruled much of the Kantō region from here in the sixteenth century. In 1590 Toyotomi Hideyoshi besieged the castle with an enormous army, built a fortress on a hill overlooking it, and starved the Hōjō into surrender, completing his unification of Japan. The present keep is a modern reconstruction, but the moat, the walls and the cherry trees in spring make it a good place to walk for an hour, and the view from the top takes in the bay and the coast towards the Izu Peninsula.
Odawara is also a food town. Kamaboko, the steamed fish cake that appears in so many Japanese dishes, has been made here for generations, and shops near the coast road sell it fresh, along with dried fish and pickled ume plums. The fishing port at Hayakawa has simple restaurants serving whatever came in that morning, often aji, horse mackerel, as sashimi or fried.
The Turnpike leaves from near Hayakawa and climbs for roughly fourteen kilometres to the ridge at Daikanzan, about a thousand metres up, in long, flowing curves through forest with a smooth, well-kept surface. It is a toll road, popular with motorcycle clubs and car enthusiasts, and on weekend mornings you will find a car park at the top full of machines and people talking about them. The views back over the bay are wonderful in clear weather, but fog often sits on the upper section, so ride to the conditions. Fill up in Odawara before you start, because the mountain roads have few stations and the ones in Hakone charge for the privilege.