The second part of our trip would be to various sites on the Kumano Kodo (熊野古道) pilgrimage routes.
We had some good rest at Pension Dolphin (after the overnight bus previous day), and woke up to a beautiful sea view that we didn’t see last night. There’d be a fair bit of driving today so we had arranged to have breakfast early from 7 am. The pension only has about 4 guest rooms, and one group already finished before us.
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- Nice loft room, if you don’t mind not haivng a TV.
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- Delicious breakfast at Pension Dolphin.
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- View from the balcony.
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- Only stayed for one night, but it was great
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- Rental car. Hard to get here without it
Kumano Kodo (熊野古道) – Matsumoto Toge (松本峠)
The Kumano Kodo pilgrimage routes cover most of the Kii Peninsula, with the eastern one starting near Ise Shrine, where we visited yesterday. All these routes and shrines along the way are designated World Heritage sites, and the mountain trails offer for some great hiking opportunities.
For us lazy modern people, there are a few popular sections that only require a few hours or less to walk, where you can get a taste of the ancient pilgrimage route without doing a full multi-week trek. The easiest, but no less attractive trail, is Matsumoto Toge. It’s a very short trail and so convenient that you can basically start near where your car is parked and do a round trip between 1 and 2 hours.
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- It would be a 130 km drive to our first destination. Avoiding the toll express way, we took the quiet Route 260 which runs mostly along the coast of the Shima (志摩) area.
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- Noted sign for Kumano Kodo.
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- Reaching our first destination. This is the visitor centre of Oni-ga-jo (鬼ヶ城) which has a free car park. We’d come back here after doing the walk at Matsumoto Toge.
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- The trail head is a short walk from the visitor centre.
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- Some head-scratching before we noticed the trail head. There’s a tiny sign next to the main road.
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- Starting point – stairs in the shadow
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- Highest point of Matsumoto Toge.. A wooden housing with a guest book.
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- We put our names there too.
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- Ahead if continue on the Kumano Kodo route; or left if cutting back to Oni-ga-jo. We took the latter. That’s all for Matsumoto Toge!
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- On the way to Oni-ga-jo is a great vantage point. Good place to take a rest.
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- Excellent view of Shichiri Mihama (七里御浜).
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- Down from here would take us back to the Oni-ga-jo visitor centre.
Oni-ga-jo (鬼ヶ城)
A walkway along the coast from the visitor centre leads to an area with some interesting rock formations.
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- Oni is evil in Japanese. Does it look like so?
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- Senjoshiki (千畳敷)
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- Little tunnel through the rock.
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- Small shop by the visitor centre which is run by the local fishery association.
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- Bought a seafood rice there for late lunch.
Daimon-zaka (大門坂)
We drove further south, heading to the Kumano Nachi Shrine, which is also where you can find the highest waterfall in Japan – Nachi Falls. It’s possible to save some effort by driving up to the small village on Nachi Mountain, but rather better would be to leave your car at the trail head of Daimon-zaka (there is a large, free car park). Daimon-zaka is another attraction section of the Kumano Kodo route, lined with cobblestones and large trees, and only takes an half-hour walk to reach the village.
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- Driving along Shichiri Mihama (七里御浜) that we saw from above earlier.
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- Daimon-zaka car park. I had expected to take less than an hour to get here, but our car sat-nav got confused on the way due to some new roads.
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- Daimon-zaka (大門坂)
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- Little fields next to the path.
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- Similar atmosphere as Matsumoto Toge.
Kumano Nachi Shrine (熊野那智大社)
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- Traditional-looking resturant. From the village there are some more stairs to climb before reaching Nachi Shrine.
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- Seiganto Temple (青岸渡寺). An ancient buddist temple.
Nachi Falls (那智の瀧)
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- From afar
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- Seiganto Temple Pagoda and Nachi Fall (那智の滝) behind it.
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- Tallest waterfall in Japan.
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- Souvenir shops and restaurants. The area produces blank ink stones, you can find these as well as the inspired “Nachi Black” sweets. (那智黒)
Shingu City (新宮市)
The nearby Nachi-Katsuura (那智勝浦) has some onsen resorts, but for some cheaper business hotels we had to go slightly further to Shingu City. We stayed at Hotel New Palace which is the newest one in the area, and has plenty of parking spaces.
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- Having said that, Shingu is still a small town and we were a bit concerned where to find good dinner. But soon we came across this interesting place Magic Pierott.
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- Menu describing the burger is made from local Kumao beef, local pesticide-free vegetables, organic ketchup etc. All that for just 590 yen!
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- Kumano beef burger
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- Dazzling number of choices of dessert