Hello friends,
My partner and I will be in Hakone for a few days in Mid April. On our full day there we would like to do a nice hike as part of the Hakone Loop and had a question if this route/order makes sense. For context, we plan on spending the prior day around Gora exploring so wont need to do that on the backend.
We would check out of our Ryokan (Yama No Chaya) after breakfast (say by 8 AM), heading to Hakone-Yumoto to take the train to Hatajuku Village (about an hour by train) to start our hike of The Old Tokaido trail. We would stop off at the Amazake Tea House for a break. From there we would walk to the Hakone Shrine. This would cause slight back tracking as we would then walk back to get down to The Hakone Checkpoint via the Ancient Cedar Avenue.
From there, the plan would be the standard reverse loop of boarding the pirate boat at Hakone-Machi to Togendai and then taking the rope way to Owakudani. Stopping there for a bit before heading to Sounzan->Gora-> our new Ryokan (Hakone Ginyu, our luggage will be waiting for us there)
A few questions
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1. Does this plan make sense or would the long hike (Old Tokaido Trail) make everything too rushed if we wanted to get to our new Ryokan around 4’ish PM to maximize our time there relaxing?
2. Between Togendai/Owakudani/Sounzan, where would you recommend spending the most time?
3. Also, where would it make most sense to stop for a bite to eat along the way? We plan on having a snack at the Amazake Tea house but will want more food at some point. Would you recommend anything in Togendai/Owakudani/Sounzan in this regard? Or somewhere else along the way?
4. If we were to cut anything to save time, would it make sense to just board the site seeing boat at Moto-Hakone, skipping the Cedar Avenue/Checkpoint? We’d prefer to check out Hatajku (for wood working) and do the big hike.
Thanks so much!