Hiroshima! And onto the islands.

And so we arrived in Hiroshima, after a day of busy road riding. The Airbnb we booked was very nice however, a Japanese style, tatami room in a house in a residential area, about 10km from Hiroshima centre. The host, Mr Junichi, was expecting us and so we were welcomed, had a great shower (that's always such a treat, after several days of cold washing), and were then treated to some nice cold beers! Our hosts were so nice! They made dinner, and we ate dinner with them and 2 other guests, accompanied by cold beer and red wine. What a fantastic Airbnb!

Our room in the Airbnb home

Leaving the Airbnb to go into Hiroshima city

At the okonomiyaki restaurant

The next day we visited the Hiroshima peace museum and other atomic bomb monuments. For me, the most impressive view was the iconic dome building, a building that stood just 160m away from the hypocenter of the bomb explosion, but of which somehow quite a bit remained. It's a symbol for what happened in 1945 in Japan. The museum in Hiroshima was a bit less impressive than the one in Nagasaki I thought, but then again that's maybe because we had been to that one first. We also visited the castle, and looked for a few items we needed to buy in Hiroshima: camping gas and good coffee, and then returned to our bnb. Our hosts took us to a nice restaurant in town, a typical Hiroshima style okonomiyaki restaurant (called Lopez, run by a Guatemalan) and afterwards, to a yukata festival in the centre of Hiroshima. What a great day!

The A-bomb dome

Close up

The entrance to Hiroshima castle

Castle detail

When looking at the map for our next day's itinerary, I noticed there seemed to be a nice alternative to go via the islands in the Seto inland sea, rather than taking the busy road to Onomichi. Joke and Jurjan had also informed us to prepare for another day of busy road cycling, Japan cycling also has the island route as an alternative on its website, so the decision was made easily to go for the alternative route! It meant 11km cycling to the ferry from the Airbnb, then 40' ferry ride to Etajima island, and then island hopping, from island to island (via Kure on Honshu), going over mostly (quite impressive) bridges and with a ferry left and right. It was 100% the right choice, this was some of the most beautiful cycling we have done, and without any doubt the best long distance coastal road we know for cycling! There was almost no traffic, and we only had a little bit of urban cycling around Kure, which we could have avoided but we didn't realise at that point. Also nice though, because this way we saw a big naval base, and even though I'm not an army fan, it was impressive to see submarines and giant marine ships from close.

First things first: better sort this out before leaving...

View from Etajima island

Clear marks on the road towards Kure, and afterwards towards Okamura as well

Submarines; didn't find the yellow one...

Along the magnificent coastal road

We camped in a beautiful beach location after 87km of cycling (a location with a promise of an onsen, but everything was closed...), then continued more island hopping on the Tobishima Kaido until Okamura where we will take the ferry to Omishima island, to get onto the Shimanami Kaido, a very famous cycling route. We arrived at the ferry terminal not knowing when the ferry would go, and missed it by 5'- we actually saw it leave. Next one: 2,5h later... Good time to find a spot on the beach, make a good coffee, have some snacks, and write a blog post!