We woke up at 7am, had a quick breakfast 🥪 at the hostel and headed to Tokushima train station 🚉, where we took a train to Bandō station to finally start our pilgrimage 🥾!

After leaving the station, a short walk led us to the first temple, Ryōzenji (霊山寺).

We were expecting to see a lot of other pilgrims, but the temples and the path were surprisingly empty. We saw in total maybe 10 other pilgrims. The weather was good: neither too warm nor too cold and no rain. This is also the time of the year where the Sakura (cherry blossom) trees are blooming and we could see a lot of these beautiful flowers along the way 🌸. It seems like we couldn’t have chosen a better time to start our walk!

Today we visited four other temples: Gokurakuji (極楽寺), Dainichiji (大日時), Anrakuji (安楽寺) and Jozōji (地蔵寺).

Tonight we’re staying in a japanese-style accommodation, sleeping in futons instead of beds. After soaking ourselves in a nice and warm ofuro 🧖‍♀️, we’ll have the our first experience eating a japanese-style dinner 🍱 (and breakfast tomorrow).

Bruno 🙇‍♂️