May 22nd in words

After another big breakfast and arranging to send our "extra" luggage on to, not tonight's hotel but the next one, we headed off. The first bridge is not bike friendly so we had to take a ferry across to the first island. Any worries about route finding were soon cleared away when the ferry worker on the island pointed to the blue line painted on the side of the road for the cyclists to follow. He also made a big show of reminding us to stay on the left!
The cars were all very respectful but the roads were narrow so we switched to the path on the side of the road when we could. We passed and were passed by a mix of cyclists - some serious, some more touristy like us but overall it seemed not too busy. The weather was perfect, the scenery amazing and Heidi was very patient and let me stop to take my usual excess of photos.
The bike paths up to and along the bridges were amazing, it's all well marked, separated from the cars and spacious.
On the route they have bike rest areas where you can fill up your water bottles, pump your tires if need be and have ice cream! Along the way we passed lemon orchards, green houses, farmer's fields, shipyards, sandy beaches and the ocean of course!
For lunch we stopped and this lovely restaurant. The food was excellent but the highlight was their fancy coffee machine. It looked rather scientific, it was all made of glass and had glass globes that the coffee percolated into.
We had a little trouble finding our Ryokan and we stopped to ask for directions. Sure enough we had passed it so we had to back track. The lady we stopped to asked for directions from must have called the Ryokan because there at the entrance to the road that we had missed the first time was a little old Japanese lady waving her arms! The Ryokan is amazing. Our room is right on the water, and I mean right on the water, with huge windows that open right up. Part of the floor has bamboo mats that are soft to walk on and there is a seating area with comfy couches. Dinner was served in our room in Japanese style - there was some difficulty getting down on to the floor and getting our legs under the table but once settled it was actually very comfortable. And then the food just kept coming. Just when we thought that must be the last dish she would bring in more! It was all very delicious and beautifully presented.
After dinner she cleared the table to the side and pulled out futons and made up our beds on the bamboo mats. Between the food, biking all day and our jet lag we didn't manage to stay up very long and by 8 we were tucked into our comfy beds for the night.