Hiroshima, Miya Jima, Nara and Koyasan

After a week of warm and sunny weather, our weather luck ran out and our one day in Hiroshima was in torrential rain. That evening we stayed in a wonderful Ryokan (traditional guest house) on the island of Miya Jima and the weather had cleared by the next morning so we enjoyed a pre-breakfast walk around the temple before the first tourist ferry arrived from the mainland. Sadly we caught up with the cold front in Nara but the weather improved again by the time we reached the Buddhist mountain retreat of Koyasan, centre of the Shingon Buddhism. At the higher altitude the Autumn colours were already beginning to show, and it was possible to see a glimpse of how impressive the Autumn leaf colour would be.