A beautiful sunny day in Kyoto and we were on the train by 11 am - duly coffee fill with a touch of banana brioche. Minutes later we arrived at JR Inari station bound for Fushimi-Inari-Taisha which is a huge, and I do mean huge, shrine complex that spans a whole mountain side. We walked up the tracks which go under thousands of tori and wind their way up the mountain. There are a few stopping places which have a traditional cafe-cum-shop, but we plodded on over hundreds of steps - "Good for the calf muscles," we kept reminding ourselves. It was very hot, so we stopped about midway up the mountain and had a cold drink form one of the cafe-shops. Plodding on got us to the start of what seemed to be a circular route to the top of the mountain and back.That's when common sense and a need for lunch kicked in. Going down the same hundreds of steps seemed to be more painful on tired legs, but we stumbled downwards until we got to a fork in the tori covered path. Taking a different route took us up again! However, after a few hundreds more "ups", we were relieved to come to what was the second way down. The shrine complex is really worth the effort. The surrounding forest is lush and the bird song, wind and occasional water running makes for a delightful atmosphere. The confining avenues of tori make it feel almost as though you are travelling underground in a mystical tunnel. All of the tori have inscriptions which, if you can read Japanese, would add to the other-worldly nature of the place. The individual shrines at places along the paths are a place for ancestor worship specific to a particular family. The most dominant idol at all of the shrines is the fox. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of fox statuettes. Amusing and yet spooky.A quickish walk took us to the local shopping street where we were able to get some well deserved lunch. Sue insisted on cold noodles - she's become addicted to the things ...
Back to the JR train for a quick hop to Tofukuji temple complex. We arrived just in time for the entries for the day to close ...
We returned to the JR station and Kyoto. A short day - only six hours plodding - followed by the essential coffee and apple pie, subway trip and food shopping. We recommend the "Cafe du Monde" at JR Kyoto station even though the cafe is a US franchise; it's convenient at the end of a rail trip.
Our aching legs ...