A Peter planned adventure !

It’s a bit of rarity for Pete to take control of the daily tourist planning but he was feeling “temple’d out” so another day around Kyoto wasn’t floating his boat.

However another 30mins further on the train there was Lake Biwa, Japan’s largest lake. So Pete had found somewhere to rent bicycles for a cruise along the lakeside, a lie on the beach, a picnic and maybe a swim, was the plan for the day.

However on exiting Sakamoto Station to look for the bike rental, there turned out to be a massive parade going past – what good luck 😎 ( or was it all in the masterplan )

It turned out to be a Sanno Festival which is where shrines are brought Hiyoshi Taisha temple from areas around the lake, then later, are returned as part of this festival. This is the sort of thing Janet researches, and really wants to to do, Pete grunts in response so we do something else 😳 but here we both were enjoying it.

It was a bit like the IOM viking long boat races, in so much as everyone was drinking !!! Be it Asahi beer out of cans or saké out of bamboo. So the atmosphere was fun.

Then came the main event – carrying the shrines back the 1km to the lake. These wooden shrines looked bloody heavy, maybe all the saké wasn’t such a good idea 👀

Everyone was chanting as they staggered under the weight ( & saké ) down the hill. We honestly thought someone was going to get injured as the path was gravel & had steps but Everyone survived and no shrines were dropped although it was a bit touch and go.

Then next on the surprise itinerary ( even to Pete ) was a funicular up the mountain for a view over the lake. Sadly it was quite hazy, but still nice.

The Lake was massive and unsurprisingly for Japan quite built up from the shore till the mountains.

We’re kind of worried we might be turning into train geeks – that’s 2 funicular journeys this week !!!

Then a cheap and fun meal near Juso station to finish off the day. The waitress loved the fact that we could understand the way she said beer and shouted it to us everytime she passed us 🤣🤣🤣🍻🍻