CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 129 km round trip from Sakurai - roughly 1 h 54 in the saddle. It goes by way of Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshimizu-jinja, Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji and back through Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshimizu-jinja. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
21 km on Asuka Palace Site → Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshimizu-jinja.
Few places in Japan can claim as much early history as the plain of Asuka, in the south of the Nara basin. In the seventh century, before Nara or Kyoto existed, the court moved from place to place, and for much of that century the centre of power was here. The Asuka Palace Site, also called Itabuki, was the residence of several sovereigns, and the building was reworked more than once. In 645, in the audience hall of this palace, the court strongman Soga no Iruka was cut down in front of the empress by Prince Naka no Oe and Nakatomi no Kamatari, an assassination that opened the way to the Taika reforms, the first attempt to build a centralised state on the Chinese model.
Read the complete Asuka Palace Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Asuka Palace Site is where the day begins. Next is Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshimizu-jinja.
Yoshino is the most famous cherry-blossom mountain in Japan, and it earns the fame. Tens of thousands of trees, planted over centuries as offerings by pilgrims, climb the ridge in four zones, so the bloom moves up the mountain through April like a slow pink tide. But Yoshino is older and stranger than a flower festival. It is the gateway to the Kii mountains, a vast tangle of steep forested ranges where mountain ascetics of the Shugendo tradition have walked for more than a thousand years, and the pilgrimage path of Omine runs along the high ridges to Kumano, passing places so sacred that women were long banned from entering. The Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range were inscribed by UNESCO in 2004.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshimizu-jinja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshimizu-jinja comes up about 21 km into the recorded legs. Next is Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji.
Ōminesan-ji is a temple on the summit of Mount Sanjō, one of the peaks of the Ōmine range in the heart of the Kii peninsula, and it holds a special place in Japanese religion. It is a centre of Shugendō, the mountain ascetic tradition that blends Buddhism, Shinto and older mountain worship, and its practitioners, the yamabushi, undergo arduous training on the ridges. The temple is famous for another reason too: the mountain is still closed to women by tradition, one of the last such places in Japan, which has become a subject of ongoing debate.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 65 km into the recorded legs you reach Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji. Next is back through Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshimizu-jinja.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshimizu-jinja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshimizu-jinja, late in the day. Next is Asuka Palace Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Asuka Palace Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Asuka Palace Site. That is the ride.
Asuka Palace Site → Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshimizu-jinja is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshimizu-jinja → Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji → back through Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshimizu-jinja is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshimizu-jinja → Asuka Palace Site is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.