Pilgrims again
29 April – 6 May Kii Peninsula Twelve months ago, almost to the day, we were setting off on the Portuguese coastal Camino de Santiago, and now we are heading down to the Kii peninsula in the far south of Honshu to participate in another pilgrimage route, the Kumano Kodo. The Kumano Kodo is a series of trails all forming part of the Kumano Shenzan pilgrimage which involves visiting the three holiest Kumano shrines of Kumano Hongu-Taisha, Kumano Nachi-Taisha and Kumano Hayatama-Taisha. We are tackling the most popular of the four major routes, the Nakasendo Way, which traverses the Kii mountain range from Tanabe in the west to Katsuura in the east and passes through 2 of the three grand shrines. But before we tackle the walk we need to get there. We were patting ourselves on the back for successfully negotiating the ferry trip from Naoshima and a couple of local train rides to get to Okayama, but with a tight changeover to catch a Shinkansen at Okayama, we struck a hitch with our...