Japan Alpine touring in Nagano and Gifu Prefectures

After 2 days of scuba diving in Izu, it was time to get on the road again. Leaving Shimoda shortly after dawn, the plan was to go up Rte. 414 to 136, and stop in Numazu. The weather was a little bit overcast, and it had been raining during the night. Not very wet, but still not dry enough to enjoy the curves with comfort...

The weather was relatively warm, but had been drizzling all night long. The roads were a little damp, so it was rain-suit weather. From our stay in Izu, we rode up route 135 to Rte. 414 via Rt. 14. This took us up to the Numazu area within 2 hours or so. After a brief rest stop at Numazu to fill up on some coffee, we took the Tomei expressway 1 stop to Rte. 138, which lead us along the back-side of Mt. Fuji.

A very nice moving road, with great views of Fuji along the way. We ended up taking a small road (rte. 358) around Lake Motosu that curved for about 10 kilometers with no traffic lights. This is one road that I would like to explore again, as I'm sure there are a couple hidden roads that would be great for a fun run sometime.

Ending up around the Koufu Minami IC on the Chuuo, it was a short jump up to Matsumoto IC where we had plans to overnight. After a short ride, we made our way to Kaiserberg, a Red Baron Group operated motorcyclist's inn.

After a brief rest stop off the expressway, it was time to go to the place we were staying, and drop the cases, and think about what to do for dinner...

About a 40-minute ride from the Matsumoto IC, is the Kaiserberg place. As one of the group had bought their bike from Red Baron chains, they had a brochure for this place.

We found it fairly easily, and were pleasantly surprised that it had sheltered parking for the bikes as well as basic maintenance tools and air, lockers to take off and store your riding boots, and a reading area by the check-in counter chock full of biker magazines. So it is definitely oriented to bikers. A good place to stay.

After a short conversation with the counter clerk, we found out about a restaurant that was part of another hotel in town (Hotaka) called Twin Oaks. Although we couldn't find the hotel itself, the Twin Oaks restaurant was pretty easy to locate (katakana sign on the road). A little steak house, that also had some local beers. Nothing like a nice cold beer after a long day of riding.

As it was a regular day and not a holiday, I think we were the only guests that night. Super quiet, and no other bikes in the garage, so we took ownership privileges with the hot baths and ignored the signs about Men/Ladies. (sorry, no pictures for that one...).

Early Summer Touring in the Japan Alps

Shimoda to Matsumoto