Sorry, before letting this 2023 end, I'd like to start a periodic introduction to some of my favourite Izu courses..

Eroica Japan 2024 is getting closer and it will be a great chance for the region to welcome a lot of visitors from abroad and to try to become a more global area than it is now. I'm not here to say if globalization is a good thing or not. Probably for some places like my beloved Venice it has became something more negative than positive. Too many tourists, souvenirs and fast food shops everywhere, loss of local identity.

Japan has always kept its traditions, language and also its population separated from the rest of the World. For centuries. This is one reason why it is still so fascinating to foreign people, I guess. It looks like a place that has to be fully discovered yet.

But then, almost every foreigner that comes to visit Japan for the first time chooses more or less the same itinerary. I had also some friends coming to visit me and they were always like "We're thinking about staying 2 days in Kyoto, Osaka, 2 or 3 days in Tokyo... maybe Kanazawa...".

I've been living and working in the Izu Peninsula for about twelve years now, but I'm still so fascinated by its beautiful and uncontaminated nature.

Here you can find  everything. Sea all around, round shaped volcanic mountains, old gold mines, natural spa, hystorical buildings, wasabi plantations, large varieties of fishes... so, everything you don't find in big cities like Tokyo.

View from Panorama Park in Izu Nagaoka

This is why during the summer holidays thousands of people come from all over Japan.

But outside Japan? Still so unknown!

Recently, as Shuzenji Town's Velodrome hosted the Tokyo Olympics bycicle competitions, we saw some European athletes that started to come to practice here. It is definitley a not globalized area. As I said before, you must take the good and the bad with it.

To Shuzenji, at Nishina Pass

Shuzenji Velodrome

I use to drive all around Izu Peninsula almost every Sunday with my kids and I always try to discover new spots that I've never been before. So from the new year I'll try to introduce this beautiful and still in a way misterious place!

Alberto