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 200 km round trip from Kashihara - roughly 3 h 26 in the saddle. On the way it passes Motoyakushiji Temple Site, Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja, Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi and back through Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Chuai is a name from the mists of early Japanese legend. The Chronicles describe him as the fourteenth emperor, husband of the formidable Empress Jingu, who is said to have led an army against the Korean peninsula while pregnant, and he died on the way in Kyushu. Historians doubt that he existed as described, but tradition places his tomb here, in the town of Fujiidera, in the heart of the Furuichi tomb group, and the Imperial Household Agency treats it as his resting place. The mound is a keyhole shape with a moat, and the trees on it are thick and old, as at the other great tombs of this region.
Read the complete Chuai-tenno-ryo Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chuai-tenno-ryo Kofun is where the day begins. Next is Motoyakushiji Temple Site.
In the late seventh century, before Nara became the capital, the Japanese court was based in the Asuka region, south of the Nara basin, and the Emperor Tenmu ordered the construction of a great temple, Yakushi-ji, dedicated to the Buddha of healing, to pray for the recovery of his sick empress. The temple was built in the new capital of Fujiwara-kyō, and when the court moved to Nara in 710, a new Yakushi-ji was built there. The original temple, known as Motoyakushiji, the original Yakushi-ji, was gradually abandoned.
Read the complete Motoyakushiji Temple Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Motoyakushiji Temple Site comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja.
Mount Yoshino, in the mountains of Nara Prefecture, is famous throughout Japan for one thing above all: cherry blossom. Some thirty thousand trees cover its slopes, planted over the centuries as offerings, and each spring they bloom in waves from the lower slopes to the summit. Kimpu Shrine, Kimpu-jinja, stands near the top of the mountain, in the area known as Oku Senbon, the inner thousand trees, and it is part of the UNESCO-listed Sacred Sites of the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 52 km into the recorded legs you reach Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi.
The Ômine Okugakemichi is not a road at all, at least not one you can ride. It is a mountain trail that runs for about a hundred kilometres along the spine of the Ômine range in the Kii peninsula, linking Yoshino in the north with Kumano in the south, over peaks, ridges and rock faces. For more than a thousand years, yamabushi, the mountain ascetics of the Shugendo tradition, have walked it as a spiritual practice, combining Buddhist, Shinto and older mountain beliefs, with rituals at sacred rocks, waterfalls and cliffs along the way. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range, inscribed in 2004.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi, about halfway. Next is back through Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja sits at 103 km, about halfway. Next is back through Motoyakushiji Temple Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Motoyakushiji Temple Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Motoyakushiji Temple Site comes up about 174 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chuai-tenno-ryo Kofun.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chuai-tenno-ryo Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chuai-tenno-ryo Kofun closes the day.
Chuai-tenno-ryo Kofun → Motoyakushiji Temple Site is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Motoyakushiji Temple Site → Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja → Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi → back through Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja → back through Motoyakushiji Temple Site is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Motoyakushiji Temple Site → Chuai-tenno-ryo Kofun is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.