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 282 km round trip from Hōryūji - roughly 4 h 36 in the saddle. The stops in between: Mounded Tomb of Emperor Temmu and Empress, Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji, Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K and back through Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Ikaruga, a quiet town on the western edge of the Nara basin, is where Japanese Buddhist architecture begins. The temple of Hōryū-ji, founded by Prince Shōtoku in the early seventh century, has wooden buildings counted among the oldest surviving in the world, and in 1993 the Buddhist Monuments in the Hōryū-ji Area became, along with Himeji Castle, the first Japanese sites on the UNESCO list. A short distance north, among rice fields and houses, Hokki-ji is a smaller temple with a single treasure: a three-storey pagoda completed in the early eighth century, the oldest of its type in Japan. Seen across the fields with the hills behind, it is a lovely, peaceful sight.
Read the complete Hokki-ji Area write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hokki-ji Area is where the day begins. Next is Mounded Tomb of Emperor Temmu and Empress.
Under a modest round hill in the rice fields of Asuka lie two people who changed Japan: the Emperor Temmu, who died in 686, and his wife, who ruled after him as Empress Jito. Temmu had come to power by winning a short and bloody civil war in 672, the Jinshin disturbance, after hiding for a while in the mountains of Yoshino. Jito, who died in 702, was cremated, unusually for her time, and her ashes were laid beside her husband's. The tomb is octagonal, an echo of the imperial throne's shape, and a deliberate rank marker in the burial customs of the late seventh century.
Read the complete Mounded Tomb of Emperor Temmu and Empress write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mounded Tomb of Emperor Temmu and Empress comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji.
Ōminesan-ji is a temple on the summit of Mount Sanjō, one of the peaks of the Ōmine range in the heart of the Kii peninsula, and it holds a special place in Japanese religion. It is a centre of Shugendō, the mountain ascetic tradition that blends Buddhism, Shinto and older mountain worship, and its practitioners, the yamabushi, undergo arduous training on the ridges. The temple is famous for another reason too: the mountain is still closed to women by tradition, one of the last such places in Japan, which has become a subject of ongoing debate.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 73 km into the recorded legs you reach Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji. 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 back through Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji sits at 140 km, about halfway. Next is back through Mounded Tomb of Emperor Temmu and Empress.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mounded Tomb of Emperor Temmu and Empress write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Mounded Tomb of Emperor Temmu and Empress comes up about 252 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hokki-ji Area.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hokki-ji Area write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hokki-ji Area closes the day.
Hokki-ji Area → Mounded Tomb of Emperor Temmu and Empress is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mounded Tomb of Emperor Temmu and Empress → Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 67 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → back through Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji is 67 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji → back through Mounded Tomb of Emperor Temmu and Empress is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Mounded Tomb of Emperor Temmu and Empress → Hokki-ji Area is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.