Every time I've visited Echizen Province 「越前国」there's been some kind of precipitation. The region is fairly central to the main island of Honshu, north of Kyoto. There are no bullet trains going directly to the area, so one must change first at Maibara 「米原駅」to a more local train.
Out of the window of the Hikari bullet train
Due to the rather extreme topography of the region, there's something of a microclimate in Fukui. The mountains separate the land into different blocks, which may have their own weather system at any given moment. This made for a rather adventurous voyage from central Fukui to the coast at Cape Echizen 「越前岬」, our final destination.
Rather you than me
After collecting the hire car, we decided to escape the central city area with its generic eateries, and take our chances finding something more "local" and hopefully a little more authentic. We were in luck. We found an interesting looking Soba place - an extremely old building covered in melting snow.
Some light reading during lunch
After wolfing down our soba noodles, we hit the road. Cutting through the narrow mountain roads, covered in snow, was really very good practice for my drifting, erm... I mean driving, skills.
The little Nissan March did rather well
We experienced hail, snow, rain... and clear blue skies on our journey to the coast.
At our highest elevation, the view was quite magnificent.
We had driven over an hour from Fukui city, and only had to cross one final mountain before reaching the our goal...
Can't go over it, can't go around it...