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.
From Nara-shi it runs 200 km to Nara-shi; allow about 3 h 23 of riding. The stops in between: Fujiwara Palace 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. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
23 km on Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara → Fujiwara Palace Site.
Nara was Japan's capital for only seventy-four years, from 710 to 784, but it left a mark out of all proportion to the time. The court modelled the new city on Chang'an, the Chinese capital, with a grid of streets and a palace at the north, and it was here that Buddhism took root as the state religion, that the first histories and poetry anthologies were compiled, and that the great temples were built. Eight monuments are included in the World Heritage listing: Todai-ji, Kofuku-ji, Kasuga Taisha, Gango-ji, Yakushi-ji, Toshodai-ji, the site of Heijo Palace and the Kasugayama Primeval Forest.
Read the complete Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara is where the day begins. Next is Fujiwara Palace Site.
Before Nara, before Kyoto, there was Fujiwara-kyō. In 694, the Empress Jitō moved the Japanese court to a new capital in the southern part of the Nara basin, the first in Japan to be laid out on a Chinese-style grid of streets, with the imperial palace at its centre. It lasted only sixteen years, until the court moved north to Nara in 710, but it marked a turning point in the history of the Japanese state.
Read the complete Fujiwara Palace Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fujiwara Palace Site comes up about 23 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 102 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fujiwara Palace Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fujiwara Palace Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fujiwara Palace Site comes up about 176 km into the recorded legs. Next is Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara closes the day.
Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara → Fujiwara Palace Site is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fujiwara Palace Site → Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja is 29 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 Fujiwara Palace Site is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fujiwara Palace Site → Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.