Sendai day out · Muryôkô-in Ato

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Sendai

   Sendai is the biggest city in Tohoku, the north-east of Honshu, with about a million people, and it wears its history lightly under a mantle of trees. The nickname is the City of Trees, because of the rows of zelkova that line its main avenues, rustling in summer and strung with thousands of lights in winter. Date Masamune, the one-eyed warlord who founded the city in 1601, chose the site on the Hirose river, and his statue sits on the stone walls of Aoba Castle, looking out over the city.

   Read the complete Sendai write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Sendai is where the day begins. Next is Môtsû-ji.

2. 2. Môtsû-ji

   Motsu-ji is what remains of a great temple in Hiraizumi, in Iwate prefecture, where a powerful family built a Buddhist paradise in the twelfth century. The Northern Fujiwara ruled the far north from here for about a hundred years, rich on gold from the mountains and horses and trade with the north, and they wanted to make a capital to rival Kyoto. Hiraizumi is the heritage that survived, and UNESCO inscribed it in 2011. Ichinoseki, the nearest city, is a few kilometres south.

   Read the complete Môtsû-ji write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Môtsû-ji comes up about 92 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kanjizaiô-in Ato.

3. 3. Kanjizaiô-in Ato

   Of all the buildings that once stood in Hiraizumi, Kanjizaio-in is one of the quietest. Only the ruins survive, a pond and a pattern of foundations beside the larger garden of Motsu-ji, but together they give a sense of the scale of the twelfth-century city. The temple was built by the wife of Fujiwara no Motohira, the second lord of the Northern Fujiwara, and the pond was designed to resemble a Pure Land paradise.

   Read the complete Kanjizaiô-in Ato write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   At least about 93 km into the recorded legs you reach Kanjizaiô-in Ato. Next is Mt Kinkeisan.

4. 4. Mt Kinkeisan

   Kinkeisan, the Golden Chicken Mountain, is not much of a mountain, just a wooded hill rising at the edge of Hiraizumi, but it was important enough to the Northern Fujiwara that they buried a sutra on its summit. In 1124 or thereabouts, according to tradition, a sacred text was placed in a bronze cylinder and buried here, with a golden figure of a chicken said to guard it, and that gave the hill its name. A small shrine marks the top, among tall cedars.

   Read the complete Mt Kinkeisan write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Mt Kinkeisan, about halfway. Next is Muryôkô-in Ato.

5. 5. Muryôkô-in Ato

   Planning note

   Muryôkô-in Ato sits at 113 km, about halfway. Next is back through Mt Kinkeisan.

6. 6. back through Mt Kinkeisan

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Mt Kinkeisan write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Mt Kinkeisan comes up about 96 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Kanjizaiô-in Ato.

7. 7. back through Kanjizaiô-in Ato

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Kanjizaiô-in Ato write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 97 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Kanjizaiô-in Ato. Next is back through Môtsû-ji.

8. 8. back through Môtsû-ji

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Môtsû-ji write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Môtsû-ji, late in the day. Next is Sendai.

9. 9. Sendai

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Sendai write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 187 km.