Mainly travelling today.

We ate breakfast in a Coffee House near our hotel and then caught a taxi to Kyoto Station. From there we took the Hikari Shinkansen to Nagoya and then the Shinano express to Nagano. On the way we passed through Ena again.

Arriving at Nagano we managed to identify our hotel on the city map, a couple of blocks from the station.

We are staying at the Smile Hotel and looking at the room plan we have one of the larger rooms.

In the guide book it says there were many shojin ryori restaturants near the Zenkoji temple so we headed there. It was dark and we almost needed fleeces! Up at the Temple, we couldn't see any Buddhist restaurants, but there were plenty of temples. The noise of the crickets was amazing.

On our way back down we spotted a restaurant, Fujiya Gohonjin, that did some western food. It was rather posh, overlooking a beautiful courtyard garden. We had battered mushrooms which were not in the same class as the ones you get in Brewers Fayre. The waitress explained there were four different types of Japanese mushrooms. They were delightful, served with lime.

Next we had Gnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce which was a small portion but delicious. The waitresses were very kind and chatty, as were all the folk there! We have never bowed so much! And they put up with Joan's dodgy Japanese!!

A lovely evening in all.