Day 57 — Wakayama - Tom and Marilee Retire to the Road

October 29, 2025

Day 57 — Wakayama

Marilee here.

Another rest day! After two months of almost non-stop cycling, we deserve some time off, and Tom woke up this morning feeling under the weather, so staying put felt just right.

The place we’re staying in bills itself as a hostel but we have a spacious (by Japanese hotel standards) private room with a kitchenette. And even better, this is a very bike-friendly establishment, with an indoor storage room for bikes, free tools and space for tune-ups and repairs. It’s an older building but the fittings and furnishings are very new. If you’re in Wakayama, we give Charlie’s Bed and Bike a big thumbs up.

Thanks Charlie’s Bed and Bike — you were a great spot for a rest day!

After a lazy morning, we bestirred ourselves to get out and see some of Wakayama. A half hour’s walk brought us to the castle grounds. The original castle was destroyed by US bombing in the Second World War, so the castle now is a reconstruction dating from the late 1950s. We didn’t trek up the hill to tour it (are we becoming castle snobs?), just admired it from afar. But a beautiful and extensive garden has survived on the castle grounds, which we wandered about in for quite a while.

A peaceful garden in the autumn sunshine.

Getting to the garden involved crossing this unusual slanted covered bridge over the moat.

Another waterway view in downtown Wakayama.

A cute little Mom and Pop izakaya where we had dinner our first night.

The rest of the day was devoted to mundane but necessary tasks — laundry, bike maintenance, a weak attempt at cleaning and reorganizing gear. We found a little ramen place for dinner and settled down for our last night in Honshu — the next day we’d be taking the ferry over to Tokushima and starting a whole new phase of the trip on the island of Shikoku.

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