Saint Servan And The Solidor Tower

60 Years of the Tokaido Shinkansen!

On 1 October 1964, a railway line like no other opened. Connecting Tôkyô and Ôsaka, paralleling an existing main line, the Tôkaidô New Trunk Line had minimal curves, lots of bridges, zero level crossings. Striking white and blue electric multiple units, with noses shaped like bullets some would say, started zooming between the two cities as at the unheard-of speed of 210 km/h.

This was the start of the Shinkansen, inaugurating the age of high-speed rail.

The trains, with noses actually inspired by the aircraft of the time, originally didn't have a name, they were just "Shinkansen trains", as they couldn't mingle with other types anyway due to the difference in gauge between the Shinkansen (standard gauge, 1435 mm between rails) and the rest of the network (3'6" gauge, or 1067 mm between rails). The class would officially become the "0 Series" when new trains appeared in the 1980s, first the very similar 200 Series for the second new line, the Tôhoku Shinkansen, then the jet-age 100 Series. Yes, the 200 came first, as it was decided that trains heading North-East from Tôkyô would be given even first numbers, and trains heading West would have odd first numbers (0 is even, but never mind).

Hence the next new type to appear on the Tôkaidô Shinkansen was the 300 Series (second from left), designed by the privatised JR Tôkai to overcome some shortcomings of the line. Indeed, the curves on the Tôkaidô were still too pronounced to allow speeds to be increased, while all other new lines had been built ready for 300 km/h operations. But a revolution in train design allowed speeds to be raised from 220 km/h in the 80s to 285 km/h today, with lightweight construction (on the 300), active suspension (introduced on the 700 Series, left) and slight tilting (standard on the current N700 types).

Examples of five generations of train used on the Tôkaidô Shinkansen are preserved at JR Tôkai's museum, the SCMaglev & Railway Park, in Nagoya, with the N700 prototype lead car outdoors. It's striking to see how far high-speed train technology has come in Japan in 60 years. The network itself covers the country almost end-to-end, with a nearly continuous line from Kyûshû to Hokkaidô along the Pacific coast (no through trains at Tôkyô), and four branch lines inland and to the North coast, one of which recently got extended.

東海道新幹線、お誕生日おめでおう！

Hello! I just saw your post about the conference. I know it's very niche, but I'd love to hear / read more about your sangaku presentation. I actually went back to Konnō Hachiman-gū this afternoon, hoping to see more examples, but no such luck. (I cannot decipher them, of course, but I taught English at a faculty of engineering, and my students could. Sometimes. )

I'll put together something about the shrine, but どうぞお先に。Nudge nudge hint hint.

Hi, thanks for the message!

The presentation was in two main parts: first the historical context of the Edo period and function of sangaku in developing mathematics during that time, and second a closer look at Kashihara Miminashi Yamaguchi-jinja's example with a modern solution. I can't read the sangaku in full, but I have been able to pick out the parts with numbers and compare some of their results with the formulas.

I can probably put together a mini-series at some point. Which parts would you want to hear more about? (That's a general question btw: anyone can reply and add the conversation of course.)

Temples on the high street: Kyôto Teramachi and Shinkyôgoku

A typical Japanese covered high street, right? Yes, there are lots of shops left and right, but this is Kyôto, a millennial capital and centre of cultural and religious tradition in Japan. So what happens when a modern high street encounters a centuries-old temple, bearing in mind that it would be very bad form to ask the priests to sell up?

Well you leave the temple alone and build around it. So, in between the big name drugstores, Animate, clothes shops and cafés lined with the street's signature bricks and tile floor, here's the entrance to Seishin-in, with traditional wooden doors and tile roofing. It is also just visible in the first picture - see if you can notice it.

Seigan-ji is easier to spot, further illustrating the contrast. Online maps show that this temple even has a cemetery in the middle of the next block, completely encircled by shopping streets and businesses.

It's a similar situation for Tenshô-ji, though, this far up the high street, the commercial tissue becomes less dense. These temples seem a bit larger and own more land. Still, we've gone from a towering, mineral, covered street in the top photo, to an open path with low buildings and plenty of vegetation, with no transition.

These scenes of coexistence fascinated me when I first visited Kyôto in 2016, with a hotel in this area, so it was great to see them again on my brief return to the city in 2023. More fascinating still is the fact that one of these "just off the high street" temples is not only very old, but hugely historically significant... and I'm yet to mention it!

Hashigui-iwa

Since the news took us back to Kushimoto, it's worth looking at another of the town's attractions, besides the southernmost point of Honshû and the nearby lighthouse. Up the coast is a remarkable rock formation known as Hashigui-iwa, which one could translate as "bridge column rocks", as if a viaduct used to settle on top of them.

These aren't standing stones in the archaeological sense of the term like Stonehenge (a popular spot for the winter solstice that also just happened), they weren't moved into a line and raised. Instead, they were originally an incrustation of magma in an otherwise less hard soil. The magma cooled off before becoming lava, and the ocean eroded the sediment around it. This would have created a wall of igneous rock, up to 15 m high and nearly a kilometre long. The wall was then smashed by a tsunami, leaving these tall rocks behind, and a beach of debris.

In the background of this photo, we see the bridge between the Shionomisaki peninsula and the island of Ôshima, where another lighthouse and monument to Japanese-Turkish friendship is located. There's a story behind that (the wreck of the Ertugrul), and I wish that was a segue, but I didn't visit Ôshima. On a hot day, energy isn't limitless so I had to choose...

Hohentwiel fortress

We've seen the stunning volcanic surroundings of Hohentwiel, and managed the climb - now we're at the gates of the fortress. Or the... tunnels of the fortress?

The entrance tunnels are a recent addition to the fortress, in the sense that the 18th century is more recent than the 10th, when the castle was first mentioned. For around 900 years, Hohentwiel Castle stood, seemingly and effectively invincible, receiving updates in line with the battle tactics of the times, as this entrance tunnel leading to a forward bastion, shows.

Now we are at the actual gates, exceptionally wide open to allow traffic in to set up or take away festival equipment. I thought they were setting up, but I can't find a trace of what was due early August. The largest festival the castle hosts is late July, so maybe they were taking away... but wait a minute. This place hosts festivals. It's huge.

Hohentwiel Castle is on two levels. So let's assume you and your army have made the climb, survived the open trench in the middle of the tunnels, got through the gates - and your objective is still up there. A 15% incline and the upper fortress drawbridge and gates are yet to be passed.

Perhaps unsurprisingly at this stage, one understands how the castle went undefeated. Owned by Swabian then Württemberg dukes, it stood in the crossfire of French and Austrian troops during the Thirty-Years' War between 1618 and 1648 - and survived five sieges.

It was another major conflict, nearly two centuries later, that would claim the Hohentwiel. And even then, it wasn't taken over in battle. The territories Napoleon conquered included Württemberg, and the French Emperor ordered that the castle be decommissioned and ruined in 1803.

Undefended and stripped of meaningful material, the castle was open to the public, who quickly took a liking to the astounding views of the Hegau area and the Bodensee (Lake Constance) in the distance. It became a tourist destination as early as the 1840s. And, as mentioned before, today it hosts festivals.

Hohentwiel Castle is a fantastic visit. It is an enormous complex, with a lot of structure left. The history and stunning views make the effort to get there well worthwhile. I recommend hiking from Singen city centre if you can for the fuller sense of reward!

Port du Crouesty

We start the new year where we left off in the last, on Presqu'île de Rhuys, but one year later. Or should that be two? The previous post was from the stormy 2013-2014 New Year celebrations, whereas this covers the calmer 2014-2015 change with most of the same friends, and our walk around the tip of the peninsula and Port du Crouesty.

These aren't the best photos given the relatively low light, but also this was before my current camera. Still, point it towards the sunset and the result isn't too bad.

"Take the aircraft engine out!" - the AP1-88 hovercraft

The Tim Traveller has just dropped a video about the massive SR.N4 car-carrying cross-channel hovercraft (which got a mention here) on display at Portsmouth, and he notes that there is still an active hovercraft service between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. That reminded me that I had a couple of pictures of that, and I thought I was primed for part 3 of "stick an aircraft engine in it". Two problems though.

First problem, the pictures aren't great. Taken in 2012 from the Mont Saint Michel ferry exiting Portsmouth harbour with my previous camera, which had a less powerful zoom and a lower resolution than my current one. It's still enough, in conjunction with the Wikipedia page on Hovertravel, the company that operates these vehicles, to narrow it down. The hovercraft can only be one of two vessels, the Freedom 90 or the Island Express (squinting at the bow it might be former), but the exact identity matters little. Both are of the same type: an AP1-88 built by the British Hovercraft Corporation, successor to Saunders-Roe who built the big cross-channel model.

And that's where the second problem arises: the AP1-88 is not powered by aircraft engines! It is powered by 4 Diesel engines, making it much quieter and more economical to run, while still capable of reaching 50 knots. It shows that passenger hovercraft transport is possible without gas turbines, and Hovertravel's current fleet consists of two Diesel hovercraft built in 2016 by Griffon.

Nonetheless, chalk up the hovercraft as something I have seen in action!

A last, albeit light, taste of winter for this season in the hills of Southern Schwarzwald. There should have been a lot more snow in this area in February, but still saw some, both on-site at Titisee, and in the distance, on the Alps visible from the village of Saig. With my sister, we walked through a snow shower on the way back down!

Not the first time we've been to this area. A train goes from one lake at Titisee to another at Schluchsee, with this cheeky station on the way:

"Taaaaaaake the train!"

The "Witch's Eye" - Engelbourg Castle ruins, Thann

For what it's worth, Prince Albert II of Monaco is visiting Thann in the South of Alsace this weekend, as he is also Count of Ferrette. Held by the Austrian Habsburgs for a while, the title was bestowed upon Cardinal Mazarin, a prime minister to King Louis XIV, following the French conquest of Alsace in the 1640s. A member of House Mazarin married the Prince of Monaco in 1777 and that's how the title ended up where it is today. I don't plan to explain the origin of the other bazillion oddball titles the Prince of Monaco holds...

It's just a pretext to mention Engelbourg Castle, built by the Counts of Ferrette in the 13th century on a hill above Thann. The French Counts wouldn't benefit from it for too long: as it lay too far from the German border to be of strategic value, the same Louis XIV ordered its demolition in 1673. But, as you can probably tell from the photo, something weird happened during the process. The cylindrical dungeon came apart in segments, and one of these landed on its side. For whatever reason, it was left there, creating a unique landmark known as the "Witch's Eye", as an echo to the "Witch's Tower" in the town of Thann, but all it reminds me of is Polo mints.

A short hike uphill from Thann, it also offers nice views of the valley and the vineyards on the neighbouring hills.

Summer highlight reel: Oberkirch

I praised this hike on a loop South of Oberkirch for its amenities, but the views were also fantastic. In chronological order, here's the first vineyard I came across on the circuit.

The first drinks hut, with schnaps, is the Köbelesberghof to the left, out of frame. The hamlet opposite, which OpenStreetMap names In der Rot, looks gorgeous among the vineyards and forest!

Just below the summit area of the Geigerskopf is the Busseck Hof vineyard, and beyond, the plains in which the Rhine flows.

Turn around at the previous photo and the path to the Geigerskopf summit will appear. A tower at the top offers some stunning, unimpeded panoramas of the Rhine plains and the Vosges on one side (Strasbourg is visible in this picture), and the Black Forest hills on the other.

Finally, climbing down, past Busseck and past the drinks hut I stopped at (Klingelberger Hütte), we reach this viewpoint overseeing the town, with the castle visible on the hills opposite. It seems that all the fruits are grown here: apples, plums, pears and grapes...