Fuji Five Lakes and Misaka Pass + Kusatsu Shiga Highland Road

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Tokyo

   Every ride from Tokyo begins with a negotiation. The roads are good and the drivers are disciplined, but traffic lights are many and the pace is steady rather than fast, so patience is part of the toolkit. A Sunday dawn is the easiest time to slip away.

   Read the complete Tokyo write-up.

2. 2. Fuji

   Fuji is the city at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain dominates everything. On a clear winter morning, the great snow-capped cone rises straight up behind factory chimneys, rooftops and rice fields, so close and so huge that it seems painted on the sky. The city itself spreads across the coastal plain on Suruga Bay, where the fast, wide Fuji River meets the sea, and it is an industrial place, long known for its paper mills fed by the abundant water that flows from the mountain.

   Read the complete Fuji write-up.

3. 3. Mori

4. 4. Ōbu

5. 5. Kusatsu

   Two of the great roads of old Japan met at Kusatsu. The Tōkaidō, running along the Pacific coast from Edo, and the Nakasendō, crossing the mountains of the interior, joined here before the last stretch to Kyoto, and the town grew rich on travellers. The honjin, the official inn where daimyō lords stayed on their journeys, survives as one of the largest and best preserved in Japan, with its long wooden halls, gardens and a register of the famous guests who stayed.

   Read the complete Kusatsu write-up.

6. 6. Seto

   In Japanese, everyday pottery is called setomono, things from Seto, and that says everything about this town. Potters have worked here for more than a thousand years, using the fine clay of the surrounding hills, and in the Edo period Seto supplied ceramics to the whole country. The kilns still smoke, and the town is full of workshops, galleries and shops selling everything from rice bowls to garden ornaments.

   Read the complete Seto write-up.

7. 7. Ryūō

   In the sixteenth century, the warlord Takeda Shingen built a series of levees and stone barriers along the Kamanashi river at Ryūō to tame its floods, and the system, called Shingen-zutsumi, still protects the Kōfu basin today. The levee is planted with bamboo and trees, and a park along the river commemorates the work. It is a reminder that Shingen, famous as a general, was also a canny administrator.

   Read the complete Ryūō write-up.

8. 8. Tokyo

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Tokyo write-up.