Katsunuma Wine & Shosenkyo

A few weeks ago we took a little trip to Yamanashi. We stayed at Isawa Onsen ad while there we visited Katsunuma to visit a winery and we also went Shosenkyo to enjoy a walk in nature.

Here's Emi sampling some wine at the Lorient winery. Since I was the designated driver I could only watch and take pictures.

Lorient makes an excellent Koshu wine.

Next we went to the Katsunuma JR train station to see what we would see.

I'm hitching a  ride.

This is an old train tunnel that was replaced by a larger one that runs parallel to it. On a hot summer day this tunnel feels like a walk-in refrigerator - it's that cool inside.

Inside looking out.

One neat thing about Katsunuma train station is that there is a wine bar just inside the entrance.

They use old rail ties for partitions around some vending machines.

Outside the station entrance taxis wait for customers arriving to visit the many wineries in the area.

After we left the station we visited Budo-No-Oka, it's a wine center that sells wines from all the local wineries. This is the fountain in front of the center.

Inside one can find racks full of wines.

From small...

To tall... wines of every variety.

Across the street from Budo-No-Oka is a small art gallery, so, being the sophisticated culturally minded people the we are we went in to see what was happening. Oh, and it was free admission too!

Just after I took this picture I noticed a sign that prohibited photography... oops!

The next day we left the hotel right after breakfast and went to the mountains behind Kofu city so we could spend time walking along the river in Shosenkyo.

It takes a little over an hour to get from the parking area to the waterfall. The walk is very easy and the scenery is great.

Near the waterfall there are restaurants where one can enjoy a meal or just a cup of coffee or a beer.

Back on the trail.

Using my super human strength I held up the mountain so Emi would be safe.

Hmmm... it looks like Emi also has super human strength.

At last we arrive at the waterfall. It's actually bigger than it looks in the picture.

With that we did an about face and started walking back to the car.

Like I said, the trail is very easy to walk. No special hiking gear is needed, just a pair of comfortable shoes.

Akamatsu - Red Pine.

Here we are back at the beginning. Since it was a Monday we almost had the trail to ourselves.

It was a great trip!

Thanks for stopping by!
Mike