Kansai! Kurama and Kibune

At the beginning of the August we took off with an overly cute, orange rental car, which was much more smaller than we had thought. Two of the group of four had a license and were able to drive, while two of us sat the whole trip on the back seat simply enjoying the scenery. Our trip took one week and we stayed 5 nights in Kyoto in a rental apartment. There is way too much pretty pictures, so I divided this trip in multiple posts.

This was my second time in Kansai area, but the time before this was 3 years ago, thus many things were now much different. First of all I wasn't last time really able to speak nor read Japanese and of course I depended on public transportation which wasn't limit this time. Last time I also had an expectations for Kyoto to be a sky creeper city like Tokyo and for that I went through a little disappointment. But this time after living half a year in a metropolitan having no forest nearby, Kyoto was indeed well longed change for the scenery. So it goes without saying that I enjoyed most about our two visits to Lake Biwa and the one day hike to Kurama and Kibune mountains.

We started our on hike early at morning when it was still ok to do some exercise before midday heat. In this point I can say that Kyoto was hit by +38° degrees heat wave while we were there, so most of the days the midday was plain struggling with the heat. It was also a relief that on the mountains of course, the heat wasn't as intense as it was in the city covered my asphalt. We first took a small mountain train to Kurama village and started our climb from there. The train ride itself was an awesome experience reminding a small rollercoaster rolling among the steep mountains and crossing rivers with narrow bridges. On Kurama station atmosphere was somewhat like from a Ghibli movie with the station covered with dozens of wind chimes.

The hike followed a route that started below the Kurama temple, swirling towards the main shrine passing buy some smaller shrines, like Yuki (snow) shrine, which is sacred for the huge tree on its grounds. After reaching the main shrine on the Kurama Mountain, the route continued to rise towards the heap of the mountain and after that started landing rapidly. On our way we saw beautiful forest and splendid sceneries. Have to say, that probably one of the most beautiful forests I have ever been in. On a mid-way the mountain would switch to be Kibune Mountain and continue landing towards Kibune shrine in the valley. We passed beautiful river where we washed our feet later. The water was much colder than expected and actually it was pleasant to keep feet there only for about a minute before it started to feel bad. Kibune shrine was decorated with Tanabata-festival decorations, which made it especially pretty. Otherwise it was an interesting destination, since it is the shrine sacred for water, thus there was elements other shrines don't have

After Kibune shrine visit there was left couple of kilometers of walk downwards asphalted roads between mountains before reaching the same mountain train we used to go to Kurama. With tired feet it was indeed nice to sit down for the 20 minute's train ride down to Kyoto.