Walking the Nakasendo, the historical road connecting Edo to Kyoto

"When you know the Universal Language, it’s easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether it’s in the middle of the desert or in some great city."   This passage from Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, one of his international bestselling novels,　greatly enchanted me when I first read it when I was in high school.  The book is a lovely fable about following your dreams.  Ever since then, I have been a big fan of Paulo Coelho’s novels. He is a renowned Brazilian lyricist and novelist and as I cannot read Portuguese, I read the English or Japanese translations of his novels.

The Nakasendo Road in Gifu Prefecture ↑

  

His fifth novel, The Pilgrimage, which was published in 1987, is about his journey across Spain along the legendary road to Santiago de Compostela that pilgrims have traveled since the Middle Ages. In the novel, Paulo becomes transformed and gradually understands the nature of truth through the simplicity of life. Personally, I don't think that The Pilgrimage is one of his best but I found it interesting. I think that whether or not you like it depends on you how you feel about his spiritual journey because spiritual backgrounds and religious beliefs differ among people.

In the two novels, both main characters walk and walk and come across many events that lead them to new discoveries in life and spirituality.

Inspired by the two novels, I’ve had a longing to walk long distances. I've always been quite a walker and prefer simply walking to going somewhere by car or by bus. In Japan, there is a famous pilgrimage road in Shikoku island called the Ohenro(pilgrimage) Road. As Shikoku is very far away from my house, in August my family and I set out for the Nakasendo(中仙道） in Gifu and Nagano prefectures just to WALK!

The Nakasedo was one of the two main roads connecting Kyoto, where the Emperor lived, to Edo(Tokyo),  where the Shogun lived. Unlike the Tokaido which runs along the sea coast (the modern Tokaido corridor is the most heavily traveled one in Japan), the Nakasendo mostly ran through mountains, forests and valleys.   

Magome (馬篭宿） was a post town in the Kiso Valley

There were 69 stations on the road between Kyoto and Edo. To our delight, some parts of the road have been preserved as they were in the Edo period. It was the road many historical figures such as the Haiku Master, Basho and Princess Kazunomiya traveled as well as a lot of commoners and samurais. During the Edo period, the standard method of travel was on foot.

Honjin(本陣）/Toson(藤村） Memorial Museum

The Honjin was the principal inn of a post town.

 Shimazaki Toson（島崎藤村）was a Japanese author who was active

in the Meiji, Taisho, and early Showa periods. 

 He was born at the Honjin in Magome in 1872. 

rice fields

Cotton roses(?) were in bloom

bamboo wood

The Magome Pass(its elevation: 801m)  It was quite cool when we crossed over the pass.

There are several waterfalls along the way.

We walked the road called the Kisoji（木曽路）of the Nakasendo.

Shimazaki Toson wrote about the road in his "Before Dawn" as follows:

 "The whole of the Kisoji lies in the mountains"

Although our walk was completely different in nature from the religious quest, self-discovery and spiritual rebirth that Paulo Coelho had in his journey to Santago, the old stone-paved road, deep forests, summer flowers, blue skies, clear streams made us feel great and refreshed. I felt that walk in the nature was really something! Though we just walked about 15 kilometers (about 9 miles) on the first day, it renovated something in my heart. We visited three historical post towns along the way during the trip.

I'll post about Tsumago（妻籠）, an old post town,  next time.

The fantastic old townscapes have been well preserved there.  

Related post: Tshumago-juku, an old post town -the flavor of the Edo period

Walking the Nakasendo:

the first day:  Nakatsugawa -    ◎(start)－Ochiai－Magome－Magome Pass－Tsumago

the second day:  　Tsumago －Midono