覚悟してください。恥ずかしながら道路事情はよくありません。大部分の遍路道はアスファルトで舗装されていて足へのダメージが大きい。また、夏場の道路からの照り返しも体力を奪います。自動車のいっぱい通る国道では、都市部のみ歩道があるけど、その他は歩道がなく、歩き遍路のすぐ横を大きなトラックがしょっちゅうかすめていきます。きわめつけはそんな場所の暗いトンネル。歩道幅は更に狭く、自動車の排気ガスが充満するトンネルの壁にくっついて歩く人の姿をトラックの運転手さんが見つけてくれることを祈るのみです。もしかしたらトンネルの中が四国遍路でいちばん厳しい修行の場かもしれません。
でも、少しずつではありますが、歩道を整備したり、街路樹を植える場所も増えています。また舗装されていても、田舎道の風景は心安らぎます。
Please prepare. I have ashamed that the road circumstance is not good. Most pilgrim ways are paved with asphalt, and damage to a foot is big. I think damage to a foot by a pavement can feel that half day keeps walking. Reflected heat from a road in summertime also takes physical strength away. Sidewalks have set up only an urban area on the national highway, but other many sections have no sidewalks. Therefore big trucks pass next to the walking pilgrim constantly. Worst sections are dark tunnel of such place. The sidewalk width became narrower, I can do but pray truck driver found walking person beside a wall in the tunnel filled with exhaust gas. The inside in a tunnel may be a place by the severest study by Shikoku pilgrimage. I recommend personally the areas where can feel the naturally landscape, local person's life and a custom from the past. The national highway sections with many car traffics aren't interesting. Sections with old road for daily living are recommended that it parallel along the national highway made newly for a car. And it's a little, the sections where a sidewalk is maintained and a roadside tree is planted is also increasing. Even if it's paved, a heart is set at ease for the landscape of the country road. And the people who clean the trash thrown away by a volunteer are in a roadside, too.
