After a nice sleep in I thought it looked like rain so quickly packed and had breakfast before riding a nice river side cycle road towards the center of Aizu Wakamatsu . Aizu being an old castle town has a lot of history and some fantastic historical buildings that have been preserved, some are now being used for cafes, shops etc but at least they did not tear them down like a lot of other cities throughout Japan. I really just pottered about the city all day , eating lunch , taking photos etc before visiting Tsuruga castle which was packed with tourists and kids on school trips. I bought an Aka Beko which is the towns mascot , It is a red cow painted with white and black spots and the one I bought was meant as a mobile phone accessory so I tied it to my handle bar bag for good luck.
It was about 30 deg in Aizu that day so I waited until the weather had cooled down a bit before cycling to a nearby small town were I free camped in a park by the river that night. It was an easy day so I slept well and considered cycling all the way back to Niigata city the following day if I could make it to Tsugawa in Niigata prefecture in reasonable time