We decided to do the temples out of order. The reason for this was simply economic - the Toyoko Inn is such a good deal that I wanted to maximise our nights there. So, instead of going out and continuing on from temple 3, where we left off, we headed out to Temple 13. Temple 13 was a bus ride from Tokushima Station, about 5 minutes walk from the hotel.
The bus takes you to within a minute of Temple 13. But it is a 30 minute bus ride. The Shikoku 88 Temple Guide is very handy in telling you what buses stop near a temple, but, it is lacking in 2 areas - how long and how much (and how often, as we found out later).
So we started at Temple 13. Yes, this is cheating a little, but oh well. Temples 13 and 14 are in the outskirts of Tokushima and 14 especially is beautiful - set on an out-cropping of rock. Then on to 15 and you start to hit town a bit more. 16 is in town and 17 is REALLY in town.
The whole walk was around 9km, which, in 24c is a pretty good walk. We did it in around 3 hours. Yes, 3 hours to do 9km sucks, but, you have to spend 20 minutes at least at a temple, praying, filling in prayer cards and getting your book stamped, etc.
From 17 we walked back 1.5km to Kô station and took a train back to Tokushima station. We got back around 3:30 or 4.
Just to the left as you come out of Tokushima station and get up to the main road there is a nice little Ramen shop. You buy tickets out front from a machine. It's not fine dining but it is cheap and damn tasty! These kinds of things - with no English - are daunting to travellers but just get the 480¥ tickets, that gets you the soup.
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