It's Time To Go Back To Kashihara, And Let's Start By Meeting The Local Animals!

Hakone Ropeway

The gondola lift up the Schauinsland is very good, but my favourite so far is definitely the Hakone Ropeway. After the train into Hakone, another train to Gôra, and a funicular, the last leg up the mountain is covered by this funitel, on which cars are suspended by two cables rather than one.

The Ropeway carries passengers up to Ôwakudani through the forest... at least as far as that ridge.

Mount Hakone is an active volcano and "Ôwakudani", 大涌谷, literally means "great boiling valley", featuring bright yellow sulphur deposits and gas vents. Going from lush green slopes to the mineral hellscape of the crater in an instant is a breathtaking contrast, and one of my all-time favourite moments from my travels.

The Ropeway can obviously only run when the volcano isn't too active. When I first rode it in 2016, staff handed out damp tissues for passengers to cover their nose and mouth and protect themselves against the gases. After traversing the crater, the Ropeway continues down the other side of the mountain to the North end of Lake Ashi, where one would continue a tour by boarding one of the "pirate ships" that cruise on the lake.

Climbing Toba Hinoyama

The road (and I guess that is the only downside: it is a road all the way) to the top of Hinoyama starts with the welcoming entrance to Jôan-ji temple.

After some 800 m uphill, past a rather large resort hotel, a chance for a break appears: a viewpoint with a camera stand (which may have been the first time I noticed one! very handy for group shots, though I was alone of course), and an art garden called Medaka no Gakkô, or the school of rice fish. Not knowing that at the time (I looked it up for this piece!), I didn't notice the fish, but I did notice the art and the wisteria in full bloom.

Most of the climbing is done at this point, and it's only another 300 m to the entrance to the shrines at the top of Hinoyama. Shrines, plural, and of various sizes, as the modest Hakuryû Inari-jinja sits next to the grander Toba branch of Kotohira-gû.

On the right, at the bottom of the stairs of Kotohira-gû, one finds the donors' board, and an inviting path... to the views shown in the previous post.

Grand Geroldseck castle - only a cat of different coat

Close to impressive Haut-Barr castle, a one-hour hike from Saverne, sit two more ruins. All of these castles were built around the same time, late 10th to early 11th century, but despite being so close, they weren't owned by the same people.

While Haut-Barr was under the control of the Bishop of Strasbourg, the two Geroldseck castles, the Petit and the Grand, were built by the Geroldseck family, in charge of protecting the lands of the Abbey of Marmoutier. At the time, Alsace was part of the Holy Roman Empire and divided into many largely independent pieces, so these castles facing each other were on a border of sorts. However, the male Geroldseck line went extinct at the end of the 12th century, and the land was co-owned by so many people that no-one was maintaining the castle. The last stand came in 1471, when a group of disgruntled knights used it as their base. The Imperial bailiff laid siege, won and the castle was left as a ruin after that.

While Haut-Barr castle gets a lot of visitors, owing to the possibility of driving there, the Grand Geroldseck is worth the extra walk and brief climb from its neighbour. As well as the dungeon, lots of walls and rooms are still present, making it an interesting place to explore. The remaining walls continue to receive restoration work - there seem to be a few differences between my first visit with @teamroquette and my second this summer, for example, I don't remember seeing the little garden a few years ago.

All that's left to say is: "OI YOU!... YES, YOU! Have a good time."

Tilting Diesels!

In June, we said さようなら to Japan's first tilting electric multiple unit (see that post also for why you'd want tilt in the first place), launched in 1973. For some reason, adding tilt to Diesel multiple units needed a bit more time - my guess is engine vibrations play a part. Nonetheless, in 1989, JR Shikoku did it, launching the 2000 series tilting DMU. The company has continued with the technology, and the latest generation, the 2700 series shown above, is 5 years old this month.

The 2000 series is still in service, but I haven't yet seen any. However I have seen and ridden two derivatives of the 2000: the JR West KiHa 187 above, which reminds me of trains in England with its yellow front, and the streamlined Chizu Kyûkô HOT7000 below.

These trains run intercity services along the picturesque San'in coast - the Super Matsukaze and Super Oki in Yamaguchi, Shimane and Tottori prefectures -, and between the San'in and San'yô coasts - the Super Hakuto and Super Inaba in Hyôgo, Okayama and Tottori prefectures, which is how the HOT7000 got its name.

With these trains, Tottori to Himeji is done in under two hours, a similar time frame to what electric tilting trains can do between Okayama and Yonago. The mountains are also quite scenic, and the HOT7000 has a feature that I don't think I've seen anywhere else: a live cab cam.

Another country worked to develop tilting DMUs: Germany. This culminated with the high-speed ICE T, which I'm yet to encounter, but in the late 1990s, at a similar time to the Japanese examples above, Adtranz built the RegioSwinger, officially Baureihe 612. These yellow and white examples work in the South-West corner of Germany, along the Rhine between the Bodensee and Basel, with a couple of incursions into Switzerland.

Riding a tilting train is peculiar. 8° of tilt doesn't sound like much, but it adds up with the camber of the tracks to produce a visually impressive experience. The tilt is really noticeable, and it does what it's supposed to do, compensating the G-forces so you don't feel the pull to the side through corners. The downside of DMUs is that they tend to be quite noisy - the engines sound like they're giving 110% all the time! On the whole, I really like them.

Notre-Dame... de Strasbourg

I know, I know. Notre-Dame in Paris just reopened. But Notre-Dame is a very common name for churches in France. In fact, we covered one in Le Havre not that long ago, possibly one of the smallest cathedrals in the country. At the other end of the scale, one of the largest, if not still the largest, is Notre-Dame de Strasbourg. Built during the same time period as its Parisian counterpart, its facade has striking similarities: the grand rose, the two square towers at a similar height (66-69 m)... but while Paris stopped in 1345, Strasbourg kept going for almost a century, filling in the space between the towers, and adding a whopping octagonal spire on one side, reaching 142 m above ground.

Of course, there were plans to make the monumental facade symmetric, but the ground under the South tower wouldn't support the weight of 76 m of spire. In fact, huge structural repairs had to be made during the 19th century to avoid collapse.

The cathedral was the world's tallest building for a couple of centuries, from 1647 to 1874. Considering it was completed in 1439... Yeah, it didn't grow, it owed it title to the Pyramids of Giza shrinking from erosion and taller spires on other cathedrals burning down. Then it lost the title when churches in Hamburg, Rouen (another Notre-Dame Cathedral) and Köln were completed.

But talk of records is just talk, and 142 m is just a number, until you're faced with it. My favourite approach to the cathedral, to truly give it is awesome sense of scale, is the one I inadvertently took on my first proper visit to Strasbourg. From the North end of Place Gutenberg, walk along Rue des Hallebardes. The town's buildings will hide the cathedral from view for a moment, only for it to reappear suddenly at the turn of a corner, much closer, the spire truly towering over the surrounding buildings which also dwarf the viewer. I don't pass by there too often, to try to replicate the breathtaking reveal.

PS - We've already done a piece on the astronomical clock housed in the cathedral, an absolute treasure.

Schauinsland

Since it's been mentioned in the comments on the previous post, we might as well have a look at the Schauinsland, a 1284 m peak on the outskirts of Freiburg im Breisgau. Only 7 km from the Schwabentor, the base is accessible by bus, before boarding a 3.6 km gondola lift ot the summit.

Opened in 1930, the Schauinslandbahn was the first gondola lift built for continuous operation, with the cabins running through each end station at slow speed to turn around while letting passengers off and on. The cable car takes the riders up the hill, offering panoramic views of the Black Forest. And then there's the view from the tower at the summit... I visited in summer, but it must be fantastic in winter too.

The cable car is not the only transport infrastructure to be found on the mountain, as mines operated there until the mid-20th century, so some mining railways with preserved vehicles can be found. Some of the tunnels can be visited (though writing this post reminds me, I haven't been inside yet).

As any jagged coastline should, Shionomisaki has a lighthouse. Many were built across Japan during the modernisation of the Meiji era, and Kushimoto town has two.

After passing through the shrine in this picture, a trail continues to the left to a cape out of frame. People from the nearby port of Koza would go out there to watch for the arrival of pods of whales when their migration was due, and return home to basically say that hunting season had begun.

As such, Shionomisaki has always had a bit of a lookout role. And, according to the Akari no Moribito story, this guy below will be looking out for us against the forces of darkness in the future! The project has aimed to give all of Japan's main lighthouses a character, complete with a voice actor! I don't understand much, but on the surface, I think it's neat.

Walking in on the Nagoya Basho

While I saw Tokyo's sumo arena out of sumo season, I stumbled on an active sumo tournament last summer. July is the month of the Nagoya Basho, and the flags of the various participating sekitori (officially ranked wrestlers, all the names on the flags ending with the character zeki, 関) welcomed not only the spectators, but also the visitors to Nagoya Castle. That's quite the entrance!

I did see one or two sumo wrestlers out and about, and made nothing of it until I noticed the flags. That's when I put everything together regarding what a man at the subway had asked. "Sumô? Sumô?" That's literally all he said, no other attempt to clarify. Yes, I know what sumo is, but it seemed unlikely to me that was what he was talking about - we were, after all, just standing in the subway tunnels waiting for a heavy shower to pass, the topic didn't fit the context and what I knew, I was just going to the castle. So I just stuck to looking a bit dim, like I didn't understand (which, to be fair, I was, and didn't).

As a footnote, the Nagoya Basho will no longer be held inside the castle walls from 2025. It moves to a brand new arena just to the North.

Éguisheim's super-slim houses

Just a few kilometres to the South-West of Colmar is the village of Éguisheim, with a preserved Medieval centre, featuring gorgeous timber-framed houses. Some of these are the daintiest, slimmest houses you can find!

It begs the questions "why?" and "how did people live in them?" Well, in some places with similar thin houses, taxes have been the reason, as residences were taxed based on how far they extended on the street, with few restrictions on height and depth. Heck, here's an example in Colmar that doesn't have any footprint on the street: the Muckekaschtele, or "fly box house". It has a surface of 25 m², but it wasn't originally used as a home - it was a watchtower to make sure people were paying customs when bringing goods to market.

I'm not sure if that's what's at play in Éguisheim, it just looks like they're making the most of the space available between streets. In any case, they're charming and eanred Éguisheim the title of "France's Favourite Village", a poll organised by public TV channel France 2, in 2013. Éguisheim's more historic claim to fame is having been the birth place of Pope Leo IX (reigned 1049-1054).

Now that @fredomotophoto is back from Alsace and Germany, I can do a piece on Black Forest clocks without spoiling his trip! The area has a lot of clock-making history, and to this day, typical tourist shops like the one above - TriBär, a play on the town of Triberg and the word Bär which... you can guess, a.k.a the House of 1000 Clocks - are full of cuckoo clocks ticking and going off all the time. It probably gets quite weird working in one of those places...

Triberg is host to the most extreme cuckoo clocks. The world's smallest are housed in the Schwarzwaldmuseum in the town centre. Wall camera on the right for scale.

Further up into the hills, on the edge of Schonach, is the opposite: this is world's first largest cuckoo clock, referenced in this previous post. As it was closed on the day I visited, I don't know much about the history of this clock, but it's housed in a building the size of a small house (gate on the right for scale)... and it isn't the biggest one any more.

The current biggest one is on the other side of Triberg, and located at the base of a big climb on the Schwarzwald Railway Adventure Trail. Gate on the right for scale. The whole building doesn't count as the clock itself (that would be too easy), only the mechanism does, and it is 4.5 m wide, with an 8 m pendulum. It took 5 years to build and its cost is estimated in the millions of euros, so you know what you're in for if you want to beat it. For a small fee, it is possible to visit the interior, but I was a bit pressed for time as I didn't want to miss the next train at the next viewpoint. I just took a break in the shop and caught the 5 o'clock cuckoo before moving on.

Bonus clock from the museum: