Gora, Hakone

We just got back to Kodaira from a mini vacation to Gora, Hakone (about 70 miles Southwest of Kodaira and Tokyo).  Gora is located up in the mountains and is known for quiet sight seeing and scenery.  We left Wednesday, the whole trip took about three and a half hours which included 2 trains to get to Shinjuku where we caught the Romance Car.  This was basically equivalent to an Amtrak train.  This took us to Hakone where we caught a switchback train which took us higher into the mountains.

We spent Wednesday through Saturday morning exploring Gora. The area where our hotel was was extremely small.  It contained two hotels, a few small shops, one restaurant, and the train station.  But no big surprise there were buses that we could take to explore around!  We went to the Hakone Open Air Museum, Yunessun (a family friendly onsen or hot spring), a cable car and ropeway line down to a lake, and then a boat across the lake to another part of Hakone.  

Overall it was a great trip, relaxing and something new!  We only got lost once but managed to find a bus back to our hotel.  

The views from Gora were beyond amazing!  We were even able to see Mount Fuji! (Not in these pictures though)