12:30 pm — TSH, day 44

Today I started walking around 7am. The trail went over beautiful places and was not difficult.

Rocky river gorge through forest
Stream flowing through rocky gorge

2:30 pm — Arashiyama

Around 13.00 I reached Kyoto. To be precise, Arashiyama. A place with a lot of tourists. A place with a lot of facilities for said tourists.

It feels weird to be surrounded by this many people. I’ve visited big cities while on trail (Shizuoka, Nagoya, etc.), I used the railway and there were a lot of people too. But they were busy, they had a goal and it felt ok. And these are tourists just walking around sightseeing. It is weird.

I’m sitting in the park and eating my lunch waiting for check-in time.

Women in yukata with parasols walking a stone riverside path, a parasolled boat drifting on the river beyond
Long wooden Togetsukyo bridge crowded with people, crossing the shallow Katsura river under cloudy mountain sky

7:30 pm — Wrapping the day

The day was easy and relaxing with only about 25km of walking over mostly flat terrain. I’m fine with that and I had no wish to walk farther. I am tired after all.

Tomorrow I’ll take a day of rest and then the last two days of the trail follow. And they may be hard so I’d better have a good rest.