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 212 km round trip from Kashihara-shi - roughly 3 h 38 in the saddle. The stops in between: Yakushi-ji, Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun, Kôyasan - Jison-in and back through Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Daikandaiji does not exist any more. That is the interesting thing about it. In the seventh century this was one of the biggest temples in the young Yamato state, a royal foundation near Asuka with a vast compound that, according to the old records, ranked among the top few in the country. When the capital moved north to Nara early in the eighth century, the temple went with it, reborn as Daianji, and the original site was left to farmland. What remains is an open field with low foundation stones, a few information boards, and the quiet that follows a big idea.
Read the complete Daikandaiji Temple Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Daikandaiji Temple Site is where the day begins. Next is Yakushi-ji.
Yakushi-ji is one of the great temples of Nara, the capital of Japan in the eighth century. It was founded by Emperor Tenmu in the late seventh century, praying for the recovery of his ill empress, and moved to its present site when the capital moved to Nara in 710. Dedicated to Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of healing, it is part of the UNESCO-listed Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara. The East Pagoda, which has stood since the eighth century, is one of the few surviving buildings from that era, and its layered roofs, with smaller roofs between each storey, create a rhythm described by one admirer as frozen music.
Read the complete Yakushi-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yakushi-ji comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun.
On the plain south-east of Osaka, among suburbs, railway lines and car dealerships, the land is dotted with huge grassy mounds shaped like keyholes, surrounded by water-filled moats, and covered in trees. They are kofun, the burial mounds of Japan's early rulers and aristocrats, and the Tsudoshiroyama Kofun is one of them, in the Furuichi group, about two kilometres from the town of Kashiwara and not far from Habikino and Fujiidera. The group, together with the Mozu group in Sakai, was inscribed by UNESCO in 2019.
Read the complete Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 54 km into the recorded legs you reach Tsudo-shiroyama 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 back through Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun sits at 130 km, about halfway. Next is back through Yakushi-ji.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yakushi-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Yakushi-ji comes up about 185 km into the recorded legs. Next is Daikandaiji Temple Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Daikandaiji Temple Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Daikandaiji Temple Site closes the day.
Daikandaiji Temple Site → Yakushi-ji is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yakushi-ji → Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun → Kôyasan - Jison-in is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kôyasan - Jison-in → back through Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun → back through Yakushi-ji is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Yakushi-ji → Daikandaiji Temple Site is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.