Our guide, Shiori, explaning the story of the two statues.

We met Shori and the two couples from Australia at the hotel lobby.

After making our introductions, we walked to the river by these statues.

This would be the start of our guided tour, walking the Nakasendo path.

The Nakasendo path was a old pilgrimage route from Kyoto to Edo(Tokyo).

The original trail was about 300 miles over two to three weeks.
We would walk the remains of this trail, 80 miles over nine days.