The Slow Road - Rather than rush from Tokyo to Kyoto by train, as most visitors to Japan do, Tom Vanderbilt chose to bike - coasting down country roads, spying snow monkeys, and refueling with hearty bowls of soba

Rather than rush from Tokyo to Kyoto by train, as most visitors to Japan do, Tom Vanderbilt chose to bike - coasting down country roads, spying snow monkeys, and refueling with hearty bowls of soba. At the peak of the day's heat, I pulled into the tiny hamlet of Hirase, in Japan's Gifu Prefecture. I'd just climbed a twisting, waterfall-lined road several thousand feet through Hakusan National Park before descending into the shimmering fantasy landscape of Shirakawa-go, an almost Tolkien-esque village (and UNESCO World Heritage Site) comprising centuries-old farmhouses with peaked thatch roofs.

- By Tom Vanderbilt

At the peak of the day's heat, I pulled into the tiny hamlet of Hirase, in Japan's Gifu Prefecture. I'd just climbed a twisting, waterfall-lined road several thousand feet through Hakusan National Park before descending into the shimmering fantasy landscape of Shirakawa-go, an almost Tolkien-esque village (and UNESCO World Heritage Site) comprising centuries-old farmhouses with peaked thatch roofs. After replenishing myself with a black-sesame ice cream cone, I made a last push toward my destination. My cycling computer told me "destination reached," but all I could see were closed businesses along a small street. Seeking shade, I flopped against a security gate and began a text to the ride leader saying that I was lost.

An ice cream break in Shirakawa-go.

Suddenly I saw two cyclists from my group in the distance. One, a Dane living in London and a veteran of the trip, escorted me precisely 100 feet to the entrance of a wood house, half hidden from the street by trees. This was Tosuke-no-yu Fujiya, a traditional lacquered-wood and shojiscreen ryokan with hot springs that resists the march of time (and the all-seeing eye of Google Maps). We were too early for check-in, so without changing out of our cycling gear, we made our way to the nearby Shō River. After scrambling barefoot across the rocks, we plunged into the clear, bracing mountain water.

The Nakabashi Bridge, in the city of Takayama in Japan’s mountainous Gifu Prefecture.