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 463 km round trip from Nara-shi - roughly 7 h 55 in the saddle. On the way it passes Chuai-tenno-ryo Kofun, Kôyasan - Jison-in, Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K and Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha. The line favours views over speed.
Nara lives in the shadow of its grand temples, Todai-ji and Kofuku-ji, but Gango-ji is the one with the best sense of age. It started life in Asuka, in the late sixth century, as Asuka-dera, the first true Buddhist temple in Japan, founded by the powerful Soga clan. When the capital moved to Heijo-kyo in the early eighth century, the monks followed, and the temple was rebuilt on a new site in what is now the Naramachi district, with some of the original roof tiles carried across the plain and reused. You can still pick out the older, darker tiles on the roof of the main hall, a faint line of continuity across thirteen centuries.
Read the complete Gangô-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gangô-ji is where the day begins. Next is Chuai-tenno-ryo Kofun.
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 comes up about 32 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 84 km into the recorded legs you reach Kôyasan - Jison-in. 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, about halfway. Next is Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha.
Deep in the mountains of the Kii Peninsula, where forested ridges fold one behind another like the scenery in a woodblock print, stands the head shrine of the Kumano faith. Kumano Hongū Taisha is one of the three grand shrines of Kumano, and for over a thousand years emperors, aristocrats and ordinary pilgrims have walked here along the network of mountain trails known as the Kumano Kodō, now part of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha sits at 149 km, about halfway. Next is back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K comes up about 325 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 376 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Kôyasan - Jison-in. Next is back through 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.
back through Chuai-tenno-ryo Kofun, late in the day. Next is Gangô-ji.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gangô-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 463 km.
Gangô-ji → Chuai-tenno-ryo Kofun is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chuai-tenno-ryo Kofun → Kôyasan - Jison-in is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kôyasan - Jison-in → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha is 94 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 95 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through 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 Chuai-tenno-ryo Kofun is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chuai-tenno-ryo Kofun → Gangô-ji is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.