This article is about our precious experience of touring around Lake Biwa, taking a ferry from Sendai to Nagoya, and from there to Shiga Prefecture, camping and touring around the lake. Have you ever been to Lake Biwa? Shiga Prefecture has a lot of nature, and of course there are many campgrounds along Lake Biwa.
- Day 1 – Nagoya Port to Hikone Port and Rokuzayazaki-hama Auto Campsite
- Day 2 – Lake Biwa to Kyoto and Miami Beach Auto Campground
- Day 3 – From that bench to Nagoya Port and summary of the trip
Day 1 – Nagoya Port to Hikone Port and Rokuzayazaki-hama Auto Campsite
From Sendai to Nagoya, it took less than 22 hours by the Pacific Ocean Ferry. From there, we entered Shiga Prefecture, passing through Gifu, and started our round-the-lake Biwa touring camp from Hikone Port.
It was a fine day. We were riding along Route 2 along Lake Biwa on a 90cc motorcycle loaded with camping gear, and the wind and scenery were pleasant.
For me, a resident of Miyagi Prefecture, the scenery was so beautiful that I wondered if we were really in the same Japan.
We moved further over the mountains, and about a third of the way around Lake Biwa, we arrived at the Rokuzayazaki-hama Auto Campground in Takashima City, Shiga Prefecture. This will be our campsite for the first day.
The biggest attraction of this Rokuzayazaki-hama auto campsite is that you can camp right in front of Lake Biwa. We arranged the campsite so that we could build a fire with Lake Biwa in front of us, and opened a can of beer.
Dinner is Tonchan, a local gourmet dish. In essence, it is seasoned chicken, but for some reason the name is tonchan. This is curious.
The main butcher store, Torichu, is located in Takashima City, so before checking in, I bought a large amount of the meat, grilled it with charcoal from Daiso, and served it with rice cooked in a mestin (
).The tonchan, seasoned with a sweet and spicy miso sauce, goes very well with both rice and beer. Of course, both go very well.
And in front of us is Lake Biwa. The weather is neither hot nor cold with no wind. Drinks and a campfire. What more do you need for camping? I went to bed that day in a great mood.
Why is it that I wake up earlier than usual when I travel? The next morning I wake up at 4:00 am. The sunrise was just beginning to climb.
Since I had brought a hammock for this camping tour, I lay in it for a while and waited for the sunrise. Even though it was a weekday, there were numerous campers besides myself, indicating the popularity of this campground.
![[商品価格に関しましては、リンクが作成された時点と現時点で情報が変更されている場合がございます。]](https://hbb.afl.rakuten.co.jp/hgb/440bbb01.901f9d90.440bbb02.4db0a8ef/?me_id=1221048&item_id=11152728&pc=https%3A%2F%2Fthumbnail.image.rakuten.co.jp%2F%400_mall%2Fichibankanshop%2Fcabinet%2Fitem76%2Flf-sht010-01r.jpg%3F_ex%3D240x240&s=240x240&t=picttext "[商品価格に関しましては、リンクが作成された時点と現時点で情報が変更されている場合がございます。]")
After drinking coffee and folding our tents, we left Rokuzayazaki-hama Auto Campground a little after 7:00 in the morning. The caretaker was very friendly to me and we had a nice conversation, and I have nothing but good memories of this campground. I have nothing but good memories of this campground, and I hope to return someday.
Day 2 – Lake Biwa to Kyoto and Miami Beach Auto Campground
There is a reason why we started early the next morning.In fact, Lake Biwa, or Shiga Prefecture, is rather close to Kyoto, so I was greedy enough to go there.
We drove National Route 161 from Takashima City, where we stayed, to Otsu City, and then turned off to the side to enter Kyoto. According to the navigation system, the trip was supposed to take about one and a half hours…but the navigation system was not working properly and was not guiding us to the road we wanted.
The reason is my motorcycle.The navigator tries very hard to get me on a motorway that requires 125cc or higher to ride.
When I followed the navigator’s directions, I found myself at the entrance to a motorway, and when I re-routed the route, I found myself at the entrance to a motorway again…so the machine and I were communicating at odds, and before I knew it, the road had left Lake Biwa and I was entering Kyoto with no real sense of where I was going.
I hadn’t been to Kyoto since a school excursion decades ago. I was like a junior high school student on a school excursion, and I wanted to see Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine and eat ramen at Tenka Ippin Ramen’s main store. The closer you get, the more school excursion students and foreign tourists walk on the road, and the further you get, the more the bike stops moving.
I took this trip in late May. In addition to being right in the middle of the school excursion season, the year 2024 was a time when the number of foreign tourists was increasing dramatically due to the depreciation of the yen.
It was a perfect time to visit one of Kyoto’s most popular tourist spots, so it was bound to be crowded.
When I finally arrived and got off my bike, I found that the inside of the building was, of course, full of foreigners and students on school excursions. It was the first time I had ever experienced inbound travel, which I had only seen on TV.
Unable to bear the crowds, I got on my bike early and headed through the urban area of Kyoto to Tenka Ippin Ramen’s flagship store. I entered the restaurant at 11:00 am before the crowds had fully arrived and ate my bowl of Tenka Ippin Ramen. When I finished eating, I went outside and saw a group of junior high school students getting out of a microbus and entering the restaurant. I returned to Lake Biwa with a sombre feeling that I had taken a route that was exactly like a school excursion.
We crossed a mountain road and returned to Otsu City. The moment I saw Lake Biwa along the road, I felt nostalgic for some reason. I took National Route 18 and rode my bike along the Omi Ohashi Bridge. It really felt like riding on Lake Biwa. This was the best moment of the trip to feel good about riding a motorcycle.
After crossing over, we entered Route 559, also known as Sazanami Kaido, and moved along Lake Biwa. We have always been looking at Lake Biwa, but the view of Lake Biwa from this Sazanami Highway is different. There are palm trees here and there, and the scenery is so scenic that it makes you wonder if you are really in Japan at all.
In the meantime, we arrived at Miami Beach Auto Campground, where we would be staying for the night. It may seem like why Miami when it is in Japan, but after driving along the Sazanami Highway, the name “Miami” makes a lot of sense.
This campground is another campground where you can pitch your tent right in front of Lake Biwa. We finished preparations and started to build a bonfire…but it was a strong wind that day. We tried to light the fire, but it wouldn’t stay lit, and we were no longer able to light it. There were no tools to block the wind that day, and we managed to cook with much difficulty.
The scenic campgrounds that we like to visit when touring camping are often at high elevations or near lakes or the ocean, and these places are prone to strong winds. The wind-blocking gear that I usually bring when camping is not allowed in touring campsites, where there is a limit to what I can bring, and I may be able to manage if there are other people around, but this time I was solo. In contrast to the previous day, I got into the tent rather early, feeling the rigors of camping, and went to bed immediately, probably because I was too tired from my overloaded schedule.
Day 3 – From that bench to Nagoya Port and summary of the trip
The next morning I wake up at 5 am. I brew coffee while watching the sunrise. One of the great pleasures of camping is having coffee in the morning. The Miami Beach Auto Campground sells an original blend of coffee beans, which I had purchased when I checked in, so I have this Miami Beach Blend coffee in the morning.
Why is it that coffee tastes many times better than usual when you are outdoors? We had coffee again that day and left Miami Beach Auto Campground early to go to “that bench”.
The bench on the shore of Lake Biwa in Hikone City is apparently famous as a reflection spot for some reason. The place is not that far from where we stayed, and we were able to get there around 8:00 in the morning. From the looks of it, it is really just an ordinary bench. Fortunately, there was no one but myself, and I sat on the bench anyway.
The weather was fine. When you sit down, Lake Biwa spreads out before you. I can see the Omi Ohashi Bridge, which I crossed yesterday, as well as the area near where we started. I feel again the vastness of Lake Biwa. I realize that I have circled Lake Biwa. And I feel sad that this trip will soon come to an end.
As I sat on a bench thinking about this, someone else came along and I gave up my seat. From there, it took about 30 minutes to arrive at Hikone Port, where we started. We achieved a round-the-lake touring camp around Lake Biwa.
From there, we returned to Nagoya, sightseeing Nagoya Castle and waiting for the ferry to return to Sendai.
![[商品価格に関しましては、リンクが作成された時点と現時点で情報が変更されている場合がございます。]](https://hbb.afl.rakuten.co.jp/hgb/4419091a.e7f401fd.4419091b.add56e63/?me_id=1201798&item_id=10059493&pc=https%3A%2F%2Fthumbnail.image.rakuten.co.jp%2F%400_mall%2Fmaxshare%2Fcabinet%2Fmaster%2F1st%2Fa14209.jpg%3F_ex%3D240x240&s=240x240&t=picttext "[商品価格に関しましては、リンクが作成された時点と現時点で情報が変更されている場合がございます。]")
This was my first long ferry trip, and no matter how much research I did and how much preparation I did before going, I was anxious and worried. I still have good memories of the 22-hour ferry ride, the Hikone Castle, and the delicious roast beef bowl of Omi beef I had on the first day of the trip.
Of course, camping touring like this is dangerous and restrictive, so I do not recommend it to everyone, but if you do it, you may see the world in a different way…maybe. I have become a fan of Lake Biwa through this trip. I would like to visit Lake Biwa again and go on a cruise on the Lake Biwa Steamship and Michigan, which I did not finish this time.
I got a taste of camping touring on this trip, and a few months later I went on another camping touring trip by ferry, but that’s another story.
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