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.
344 km from Uji to Uji, about 6 h 48 of riding. On the way it passes Hokki-ji Area, Tatsusayama Kofun, Kôyasan - Jison-in and Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Take a ten-yen coin out of your pocket in Japan and you are holding a picture of this place. The Phoenix Hall of the Byōdō-in in Uji, with its wings stretching out on either side of a central hall and bronze phoenixes on the roof, is one of the most famous buildings in the country. It was built in 1053 by Fujiwara no Yorimichi, a member of the most powerful aristocratic family of the Heian period, who converted his father's villa into a Buddhist temple. Its reflection in the pond in front was meant to evoke the Pure Land paradise of the Amida Buddha.
Read the complete Byodo-in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Byōdō-in is where the day begins. Next is Hokki-ji Area.
Ikaruga, a quiet town on the western edge of the Nara basin, is where Japanese Buddhist architecture begins. The temple of Hōryū-ji, founded by Prince Shōtoku in the early seventh century, has wooden buildings counted among the oldest surviving in the world, and in 1993 the Buddhist Monuments in the Hōryū-ji Area became, along with Himeji Castle, the first Japanese sites on the UNESCO list. A short distance north, among rice fields and houses, Hokki-ji is a smaller temple with a single treasure: a three-storey pagoda completed in the early eighth century, the oldest of its type in Japan. Seen across the fields with the hills behind, it is a lovely, peaceful sight.
Read the complete Hokki-ji Area write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hokki-ji Area comes up about 41 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tatsusayama Kofun.
Southern Osaka has a secret that is hard to see from the ground: its suburbs are woven around ancient burial mounds, some of them among the largest tombs ever built. In Sakai, these kofun belong to the Mozu group, which, together with the Furuichi group further east, was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 2019. Tatsusayama is one of the smaller mounds, a wooded hill surrounded by houses and roads, but it is part of the same story. Between roughly the fourth and sixth centuries, the rulers of the Yamato court and their elite were buried in tombs shaped like keyholes when seen from above, with moats around them and clay figures called haniwa placed on their slopes.
Read the complete Tatsusayama Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Tatsusayama Kofun. Next is Kôyasan - Jison-in.
Before you ride up to Mount Koya, the great mountain monastery of Shingon Buddhism, stop at its doorstep. Jison-in sits in the Kii river valley at Kudoyama, below the mountain, and it was founded by Kukai, the monk also known as Kobo Daishi, in the early ninth century as the administrative office and supply base for the new monastery above. Its most loved story concerns his mother. Women were barred from Koyasan for over a thousand years, so she lived here, and tradition says Kukai walked down nine times a month to visit her. That, the locals will tell you, is where the name Kudoyama, nine-times mountain, comes from.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Jison-in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kôyasan - Jison-in, about halfway. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K.
Mount Kōya is one of Japan's great sacred places, a high basin in the mountains of northern Wakayama where the monk Kūkai founded a monastic centre for Shingon Buddhism in the early ninth century. Today it is a town of over a hundred temples, many of which take in overnight guests, set among towering cedars. South of the summit plateau, deep in the forested ridges, run the old pilgrim trails that link Kōya with the Kumano shrines, part of the network inscribed by UNESCO as the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K sits at 151 km, about halfway. Next is back through Kôyasan - Jison-in.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Jison-in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kôyasan - Jison-in comes up about 222 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Tatsusayama Kofun.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tatsusayama Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 271 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Tatsusayama Kofun. Next is back through Hokki-ji Area.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hokki-ji Area write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hokki-ji Area, late in the day. Next is Byodo-in.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Byodo-in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 344 km.
Byōdō-in → Hokki-ji Area is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hokki-ji Area → Tatsusayama Kofun is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tatsusayama Kofun → Kôyasan - Jison-in is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kôyasan - Jison-in → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → back through Kôyasan - Jison-in is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kôyasan - Jison-in → back through Tatsusayama Kofun is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tatsusayama Kofun → back through Hokki-ji Area is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hokki-ji Area → Byodo-in is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.