Ooshu Sendo, the old road

I went out before breakfast this morning and walked 10 kilometers. Ian was busy at his university and could not come. I took a new route, starting out along a road that I have walked on before. Just a few hundred meters past a large shopping center, I found a sign indicating that a narrow road, almost a path, going up a steep hill was part of the Ooshu Sendo - the road that I mentioned the other day, the one that Basho used. I started up the hill and soon the pavement disappeared and I was on a dirt path that is probably still the way it was 200 years ago. The surface has been worn down well below the level of the surroundings but there are no other improvements. It is quite steep and definitely made for walking only. I suspect that next year in Shikoku we will travel on many stretches like this.
When I reached the top of the hill, I found that the Ooshu Sendo disappeared again. It stopped at the edge of a large kindergarten, one that is very popular because they have an English program for the kids. I went through the yard and discovered that I had to go almost all the way back down the hill, but this time on a paved driveway, to get back onto the street that I was planning to continue on.

Twenty minutes later I was almost back to the place where I had found the engraved stones the other day, but I felt nature calling and turned off the road onto a path into the woods. As I walked along, I found a beautiful river that, except for the dam, is probably still pretty much the same way it was when Basho walking along here, although the wall on the left bank is new.
One of the things that impressed me this morning was that I was never more than about two miles, as the bird flies, from my apartment, which is in the middle of a built up area with mostly multi-story apartments and quite a few stores. Yet, I found some truly natural settings where civilization hardly intruded.