October 17, 2007
Day 9: Obuse to Matsumoto: The first of the great castles
From Obuse, we cycled south along the Chikuma through the Nagano urbanization, staying mostly on very quiet roads, alleys and bikepaths alongside the river (aided greatly by the GPS, which let us quickly pick up on route options like this as we came upon them). Then we climbed out of the valley and dropped down to Matsumoto, our next night's stopover. Matsumoto, a mid-sized town, is best known for its great castle - one of the finest in Japan. We enjoyed touring the castle, admiring it from all perspectives and enjoying the view over the city and surrounding hills.
In Matsumoto, as we were to find for much of the rest of our tour, bicycles are used very extensively as a method of transportation - something we had seen much less of in the mountains. It became a common site to pass grocery stores with a few hundred bikes parked outside, or to walk down streets watching out for steady streams of cyclists weaving through streams of pedestrians. I've never been in a place where bikes formed such a major share of the transportation network. It was enjoyable and at times amazing to see the use that bikes were put to, with people passing by with full loads of groceries, or with children both on the rack behind them and on the cross bar in front of them.
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Today's ride: 58 miles (93 km)
Total: 350 miles (563 km)
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