Egami Village on Naru Island and Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Egami Village on Naru Island

   Egami is a small Catholic church on Naru Island in the Goto archipelago, off western Kyushu, and its story is one of the most remarkable in the history of Japanese Christianity. After missionaries arrived in the sixteenth century, the shogunate banned the faith and for about two and a half centuries persecuted believers. Some communities went underground, hiding their rosaries and their prayers in the guise of Buddhist or Shinto customs, and became known as the Hidden Christians. In the Goto islands, families who had fled from Nagasaki in the late eighteenth century cleared poor land and kept their faith quietly, and when the ban was lifted in the 1870s they came into the open.

   Read the complete Egami Village on Naru Island write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Egami Village on Naru Island is where the day begins. Next is Villages on Kashiragashima Island.

2. 2. Villages on Kashiragashima Island

   Kashiragashima is a scrap of rock off the northeast coast of Nakadōri, in the Gotō Islands west of Nagasaki, and for a long time nobody wanted to live there. In the nineteenth century the island was used as a place to isolate smallpox patients, and that very isolation drew a small group of Hidden Christians, Japanese Catholics who had kept their faith in secret through more than two centuries of persecution. They settled in a cove, farmed the steep slopes and fished. After the ban on Christianity was lifted, they built a church out of the local sandstone, quarried and carried by hand, under the direction of the master builder Tetsukawa Yosuke, who designed many churches across the region. Completed in 1919, it is a sturdy, beautiful building, and the village is part of the UNESCO listing of Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region, inscribed in 2018.

   Read the complete Villages on Kashiragashima Island write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Villages on Kashiragashima Island comes up about 63 km into the recorded legs. Next is Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island.

3. 3. back through Villages on Kashiragashima Island

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Villages on Kashiragashima Island write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   back through Villages on Kashiragashima Island, late in the day. Next is Egami Village on Naru Island.

4. 4. Egami Village on Naru Island

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Egami Village on Naru Island write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Back at Egami Village on Naru Island. That is the ride.