Sunday, July 6, 2025

Per usual I was unable to sleep on the plane, and Scott had nearly no sleep as well. Overall it was an easy direct flight from Seattle to London on British Airways, and we even landed a bit early.

Our route from Heathrow to Canterbury would involve taking the Elizabeth Line to the Thameslink connection to St. Pancras, and then getting on a regional rail line. Thank you Google Maps for outlining this type of navigation which in the the past would have taken so much more work… this GenXer still marvels at times. Navigating ourselves in Heathrow to the Elizabeth Line was surprisingly difficult. Was the signage unclear or were we just zombies? A tap of our credit cards took care of our fares until St. Pancras. We attempted to use the kiosk at St. Pancras for our regional line tickets to Canterbury, but were confused as to whether we should pay for a “peak” or “off-peak” fare. I suppose it being a Sunday should have clued us in, but again… zombies, so we elected to stand in the short queue for a real human.

We had a brief wait for our departure from St. Pancras and sat for a coffee and a treat break at Benugo. Our ride to Canterbury was just about an hour, and the uncrowded train meant both of us had window seats to enjoy the view of the countryside.

The walk from Canterbury West station to our hotel was a pleasant half mile. When we turned left down Mercery Lane and I got my first view of the cathedral I was moved. I had been looking forward to seeing her, but did not expect her to elicit that much emotion.

At the entrance of the cathedral grounds I told them we had reservations at the Lodge and we were ushered right in, past all the poor souls that have to pay for entry. With the Lodge stay we got free unlimited access! We were about three hours early for check-in but of course able to leave our bags at reception.

Scott’s brother and his wife live somewhat nearby in Essex, and Steve was able to come meet us for our first visit in six years! The three of us set off to find pints and food, our first stop at the Bell & Crown which was first licensed in 1862. Later we enjoyed some carb-loading at Franco Manca which specializes in sourdough pizzas.

After all of this nutritional intake we meandered the streets aimlessly until it was time to check-in at the hotel. I knew the Lodge was on the grounds of the cathedral, but didn’t realize exactly how close!

Our room was simple, but well-appointed and clean. The highlight was the framing of the cathedral in our window.

Here’s a little video tour I put together…

At the end of the video there’s footage of a garden at the Lodge that was lovely, and included a really interesting sculpture of Jesus depicted as a middle-aged man. Naturally I didn’t recognize him, but Google helped me out.

After our sojourn, the three of us set out to explore the Cathedral grounds which were quiet in the late afternoon. There were gardens and a cloister, some ruins of an infirmary built in the 12th century, the Chapter House of the old monastery, as well as other points of interest. Really gorgeous spaces – it has been a number of years since I’ve found myself appreciating a cathedral this much, and this was only the exterior!

By this time the lack of sleep was catching up with us travelers, and Steve was ready to drive the 80 miles back home. Our travel/arrival day ended abruptly, and I was asleep by 5:00 pm.

Friday, July 4, 2025

I turned 50 years old in May, which still seems odd to say out loud. I don’t really have a hangup about the number, it’s more that I feel a bit too immature to have earned it if that makes any sense. But then sometimes I’ll have conversations with younger friends, like in their 30s and early 40s and they’ll say something along the lines of “you’ve lived a lot of lives”. I guess that’s true.

Although we travel a fair bit, this felt like the kind of birthday you schedule a special trip for. Something meaningful. To me it needed to feel like an adventure and I wanted something that included a physical challenge. Because, you know, I’m not too old for those kinds of things, right? Yes, I suppose I feel the need to prove something to myself.

Through a very long maze of conversations and online research that I won’t bother detailing here, I managed to settle on a pilgrimage route in Europe. No, not that pilgrimage route. Have you heard of the Via Francigena? I hadn’t before stumbling across it online, either.

“The Via” as I’m apt to call it these days had a few points of appeal for me. One, it terminates at the Vatican. My first real travel abroad experience was a semester abroad in Rome from whence I trace the birth of my travel bug that is never satiated – oh does that make it a parasite? Secondly, it’s pretty obscure and sparsely populated particularly at the start of the journey from England into France and Switzerland. To earn the Testimonium at the Vatican a pilgrim must show proof of having walked only the approaching 100 kms starting somewhere in Italy. And that’s what a lot of people do – start in Italy – leaving the beginning part of the route quite empty of the hoards of pilgrims you might find in Spain. Others report going days without ever seeing another pilgrim, and to me that sounded like perfection. Finally, this is a long ass route. Almost 1400 miles. A fair few do the whole route in one shot walking for months, but for our schedule and purposes this is a Life Project that will take several years of trips to complete. I can’t articulate it, but for some reason that was appealing. I wonder if it’s related to my preference for book series over standalones? I recently finished the Patternist series. Anyway…

We are budgeting 12 days of walking for this chapter, which will take us from Canterbury, UK across the channel into the Hauts-de-France region with a final target of Arras, France.

The planning for this has been pretty intense. Because the first part of the route is not heavily trafficked, you cannot just show up and wing it like you can on some other routes, calling ahead each day to multiple accommodation options to see which one has room. Food options are also somewhat limited in these rural towns. If you care to roll the dice the advice is to carry a sleeping bag and tent so that you can utilize camp grounds or other potential unofficial options if you are stuck. Um, no thank you I’m done sleeping on the ground. Our typical slow travel style involves booking no more than one or two beds over a 1-3 week trip; this was quite different. Not only did I need to book 13+ places to stay, I also had to research how and where we would get food along the route.

Training hasn’t been as intense as one might think. Or perhaps my training hasn’t been as intense as it should have been. I guess time will tell. Primarily we did urban walks up to 12.5 miles in length, wearing clothes we plan to bring and carrying our packs full of the things we plan to bring. The ball of my foot just under my left big toe is prone to blisters. My average walking speed is 3 miles an hour. I haven’t had any upper body pain, and only minimal leg muscle soreness that resolves quite quickly with rest. Taking a break at a brewery around the 8.5 mile mark is ideal. The elevation gains/losses in the area of this first trip aren’t terribly significant so I’ve just been doing flat routes. Again, time will tell.

Our most common training routes have included a shorter one we call “The Fremont Loop”, and then our 12.5 mile route that circles Lake Union and includes a stop at Gasworks Brewing. Beer and smash burgers are good fuel, right?

And then there’s the packing. You have to carry your own stuff every day. You need to be prepared, but limit those “just in case I need it” things. It will likely be really hot walking across farmland in July exposed to the sun, but if it rains the trails can be unbelievably muddy. After several hours of walking every day you’ll also have down time at your destination, sometimes in towns without anything to really do so how do you entertain yourself? Will the items that you wear dry overnight so you can launder them most days? Search the internet for “camino packing list” and you’ll see everyone has an opinion.

After all of the blogs and YouTube videos and guidebooks and social media posts and our own training walks, this is what I’ve settled on that’s worth carrying. I haven’t weighed it, but I’ve done a bunch of long walks carrying my pack with almost everything here, so it’ll be fine, right? Right? RIGHT?

For carrying…
For trail and off-trail walking…
Jackets…
Trail-wear…
For off-trail activities, incl. a few days in Brussels at the end!
Sleepy time wear…
Sun protection…
Hydration…
Hygiene…
Also, hygiene (etc.)…
Leisure time…
Electronics…
Healthcare…

In addition to these physical items, the following are loaded onto my phone as resources for this trip:

The Via Francigena app, that includes downloaded walking maps for offline use (the icon is blue with a white outline of the pilgrim logo)
The AllTrails app with our stages downloaded for offline use as a backup option
The Kindle app, with downloaded copies of Sandy Brown’s Cicerone Guide, and the Chinn/Gallard Lightfoot Guide
The Relive app to track our own path and create videos
TripIt to keep track of all of our transportation and accommodation bookings

Time has run out for my overthinking and overplanning; all that remains is getting on that plane tomorrow…

Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Today was our Skagway, Alaska stop, and we were scheduled to have a long port day here.

We wandered the streets of the very small town. It was quite quaint with pioneer-era buildings and small shops surrounded by an epic natural backdrop.

I got an official Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park stamp in my NP Passport, and also snagged a couple of extra stamps for my journal. Between those, a couple of stickers, and an artist postcard my journal for this day is quite well decorated.

Despite my insistence that I wouldn’t buy any yarn on this trip, I couldn’t stop myself from wandering into Boreal Artworks/Aurora Yarns “just to browse”. But then I found kits from Raven Frog Fibers that match a book that I already own and will use extensively when we start our RV retirement adventure. I restrained myself and only bought the kit for the NP we would see on this trip (Glacier), but then also couldn’t stop myself from buying this gorgeous yak & silk blend. BAH! Hi, I’m Stacy and I’m a yarnoholic.

We went for a coffee stop at The Sittin’ Sasquatch, sitting in the window to enjoy some people watching. I ordered a cappuccino and the manager/owner (?) warned me it would take a bit to make because they “do it right”. OK, he was not joking. This was one of the best cappuccinos I’ve ever had outside of Roma.

We stopped in at Skagway Brewing for a pint, which was a large-brewery experience. Typically breweries with souvenir shops attached aren’t my jam, but the beer was tasty and we enjoyed their peaceful back patio.

The brewery winner of the day was the much smaller Klondike Brewing. The outside upper deck with a view (that for some reason hardly anyone else noticed?) was perfection and we lingered there for quite awhile.

Scott suggested some more exploring out into a trail area called Yakutania Point and I grumbled. But I went anyway. And thank god we did because… well, Alaska was Alaska-ing on this glorious sunny day.

We eventually made it back to the boat and dressed for our 8:00 pm dinner reservation at Onda, the Italian restaurant. We had a lovely seat next to the window and really enjoyed the food which was much better than they had at the previous Italian specialty restaurant that was called La Cucina. In fact, Onda is probably my new favorite specialty restaurant. My only complaint was that it was SO MUCH food, but they were nice and averted their eyes when we walked out with pizza leftovers (for some reason I don’t think you’re supposed to do that).

Spoiler alert: This ended up being my favorite day of this trip. I know we will love finding Skagway again in the the future when we explore Alaska in our RV.

Thursday, July 18, 2024

Today was for a walk in the mountains, a hike between two villages: Kibune and Kurama. The route includes many points of interest tucked into idyllic nature, and came up as a day trip idea during our pre-trip research. I had asked our Kyoto Free Walking Tour guide about it back on the 13th and he endorsed it. Most people walk from Kurama to Kibune, but I came across recommendations online to do the opposite direction for less overlap with other people, and a more gradual upward slope at the start so that’s what we did.

Google Maps helped us navigate to Kibuneguchi Station via a city bus and the Eizan Kurama line. We encountered this sign when we got off at Kibuneguchi Station and it gives a good overview of the situation. The hiking route we were taking was between Kifune-jinja Shrine and Kurama Station (the dotted line, top to bottom), but our arrival point was the station at the bottom left of this sign with the red triangle.

There was a bus up to the village/Kifune Shrine where the trail starts, but we elected to walk the 1.2 miles along the road instead. It was along a very narrow shoulder, but a few others were doing it as well so we felt safe. Along the way we had lovely views of a river with the occasional waterfall.

About halfway to Kifune Shrine we stopped for cold drinks at Kokon Fujiya and paid the extra ~$6 to sit on the tatami mats on the platform next to the river. It was lovely and worth every penny. One of us was a bit slow getting down and back up again.

We walked around Kifune Shrine, then crossed the red bridge to pay our entry fee of 500 yen per person (around $3.30 USD each) at the booth. The fee included an English language brochure of the route that detailed the numbered sites that we would see, and help me answer the age old question “ARE WE THERE YET???” along the way when I was sweating my ass off.

There were also loaner walking sticks on offer at the entry booth. I hesitated to grab one but a domestic traveler who was just ending their hike recommended it so I went for it. Very good advice! As you can see, the stick doubles as a way to demand an end-of-hike ice cream from your partner to keep your motivation up.

The route started with a nearly consistent uphill climb of 573 m on a forest trail. It was very sweaty, although not as sweaty as our Fushimi Inari experience. Less mozzies, too.

At the Nishi-mon/Western Gate (site #40) we were able to sit for a break on a bench. The hike felt like much less of a slog after that since the climb was much more gradual from there to the highest site (#35), and there were more sites for our entertainment between #40 and the end of the route. The downhill to Kurama felt like a breeze. There’s a cable car option for part of that final descent (or ascent if you begin in Kurama), but we were happy to walk.

We really enjoyed this experience. Scott said it was his favorite part of our Kyoto trip thus far and I agreed. Here’s a massive photo dump of our hike. These are not in order… like, at all. I think they give a great idea of how much variety there is along this trail.

Kurama village was largely devoid of tourists when we arrived. We got that post-hike ice cream that always tastes so amazing.

Then we found this famous Tengu fellow at the Kurama train station before heading back to central Kyoto. My nose naturally veers left, so I tried his upward slope on for size.

Back in Kyoto we headed to the Furukawacho Shopping Street because it housed a restaurant recommendation from our Free Walking Tour guide. While we waited for the restaurant to open we wandered nearby and encountered Wire & Days just two doors down – a little boutique shop of handmade wire tchotchkes. We found a cute thank you gift for our friend/petsitter back home, and also purchased a “WELCOME” sign for ourselves. Lovely shop, and I’m a sucker for souvenirs that you can actually see being made at the same time! I learned later (due to unfortunate circumstances) that their shipping rates to the US are very reasonable, so I would even recommend purchasing online if you see something you like!

Alas the restaurant opened and we discovered yet again that our Free Walking Tour guide gives great recommendations. His favorite ramen spot: Gion Shirokawa Ramen. It was super tasty, and we got several items for about $18 USD.

We finished our evening a couple of blocks down at Beer Komachi with tasty pints in an all too familiar craft beer environment.

This was one of those perfect slow travel days. If we had only done the 2-3 nights in Kyoto like a lot of standard 2-week itineraries recommend, we would have missed out on this particularly awesome day.

Thursday, July 11, 2024

Today was a reminder that a flexible mindset is key to staying positive during travel. For months prior to our departure I had planned the FUCK out of this day trip out of Tokyo, so on the surface this day looks like a failure.

Early in our travel planning I learned about Hakone as a popular option. There were several YouTube videos and online resources for the beautiful area, detailing the variety of experiences and transportation options for the day. japan-guide.com had my favorite video and blog post and helped me craft our plans.

So we set off early on this day for a journey that I was excited about. We’d move about on trains, busses, a cable car, a tram, and even a pirate ship. We’d walk through a forest, walk on a mountainous volcanic area, and sail on a lake. We’d drink local beer, buy local handicrafts, hike a historic pathway, and (fingers crossed) get an epic view of Mt. Fuji.

We had bought our Hakone Freepass and Romance Car upgrade tickets the previous day at Shinjuku Station at the Odakyu counter for an 8:30 am departure. The pass included all of the transportation for the day, covered some of our activity costs, and gave us discounts on other things we planned to see and do. Some blogger (I need to do a better job of recording who my sources are during planning) had suggested not booking the return ticket ahead of time to maintain flexibility. This was such an excellent tip, for a reason I did not anticipate!

The 80-minute train ride was super enjoyable. Large window to enjoy the scenery, ekiben and snacks, laptop time, and knitting time.

At the exit of Hakone-Yumoto Station we came upon this lovely river and were happy to breathe in some fresh nature air!

As a popular domestic and foreign traveler destination, the signage, staffing, and organization at the Hakone-Yumoto Station was excellent. We found our “K” route bus quite easily to head to our first area destination – Hatajuku, known for their wood marquetry handicrafts called Yosegi Zaiku.

I say “area” but Hatajuku was just a lovely little street, and only one of the stores was open (as far as I could tell). Despite the popularity of the Hakone area, we seemed to be the only tourists in this little hamlet. The store we entered was two-thirds workshop and one-third shop; clearly the items in the shop were hyperlocal. The pieces they were selling were plentiful and gorgeous. If we led a normal life on a normal trajectory I could have spent a lot of money in there. Instead I purchased a small keychain in the form of Mt. Fuji, thinking it would be a lovely, meaningful, functional souvenir of the day I saw the great mountain.

From Hatajuku one could join the Old Tokaido Road trail to hike down to the lakefront, and that was the plan. A 3-mile walk on the Edo-period road that joined then-capital Kyoto with then- and now-business center and port of Tokyo. As we headed toward the entry point it started to sprinkle, but it was hot and we live in Seattle so we were not deterred. I was thinking this would be a great preview of possibly a future multi-day hiking trip?

I don’t know how much of this historic road/current trail looks like the point at which we entered, but our section started with large, uneven boulders with a fair amount of moss and an upward slope. Add worsening rain and this was a slippery obstacle course. I sometimes refer to Scott as a mountain goat because of how sure-footed he is, but even he was slipping and sliding. It was like ice. We made it about 50-feet on the mild upward slope of our entry point and I said HELL NAH. This was a fall waiting to happen, possibly with an injury. We could either go back down the 50 feet or continue up maybe another 50 feet to the next exit point. It felt safer to go up.

Our exit from the trail was at a 2-lane, curving mountain road without a shoulder. By this time it was pouring rain. We scampered back down the road to the point in Hatajuku in which we had disembarked the bus earlier. We waited about 10 minutes in the pouring rain for the next bus and took it down to Motohakone on the shore of Lake Ashi.

We got off the bus and scurried through the rain to Bakery & Table. We enjoyed tasty coffees and pastries in a warm, dry environment with a lovely picture-window view of Lake Ashi. It was pissing and gray, but we could still see the famous torii gate from our seat and it was a vibe that I just adore.

During our time in Bakery & Table the rain had subsided but the visibility across the lake and up towards Mt. Fuji remained very poor. We had planned to get on a sightseeing cruise from Motohakone, but noted we hadn’t seen any of the famous (and silly but that’s OK) pirate ships come into the dock while we were at the coffee shop. We could have looked for an alternative transportation option towards Togendai Station for our cable car ride up to Owakudani, but given the visibility issue it just didn’t seem worth it. So we decided to cut our losses. I even used the phrase “sunk cost fallacy” to Scott. #personalfinancenerdalert

Before heading back to towards the train station, we did enjoy a stroll along the shopping street in Motohakone. Scott found himself a little snacky snack at food cart called Dandy Kitchen – kind of a Spanish/Japanese fusion of churro balls in local flavors. Also, he likes the word “dandy”, because he’s an 87-year old man trapped in a 47-year old’s body.

We hopped on a bus back to Hakone-Yumoto Station with guidance from one of staff at the bus depot. At the Station we picked up our return train ticket for a 2:30 pm departure back to Shinjuku Station (yay flexibility!).

When we return to Tokyo in the future, during a season other than summer FOR SURE, we plan to spend a couple of nights in Hakone. Even though we didn’t get to do most of the planned activities for today, we saw enough to know that a short stay would be super enjoyable. We will get back on that Old Tokaido Road trail, we will get on that cheesy pirate ship, we will ride the gondola, and we will get an epic view of Fuji-san.

Back in Tokyo we found our way to Tokyo Aleworks and enjoyed excellent burgers and beers.

Afterwards we made sure our last night in Tokyo included visiting the Marunouchi side of Tokyo Station to enjoy the illuminated architecture.

Tomorrow we head to Kyoto. Seven nights in Tokyo and we barely scratched any sort of surface. We will be back, and we will figure out how to stay for a month or more. A most excellent and intriguing first impression.