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 371 km to Nara-shi; allow about 7 h 10 of riding. It goes by way of Komuroyama Kofun, Kôyasan - Jison-in, Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K and Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Kasugayama is a forest that has been protected since the ninth century, which is why it feels different from any other woodland in the region. Hunting and logging were banned here in 841, because the hill is sacred to the Kasuga shrine, and the result is a primeval stand of cedar, cypress, oak and evergreens on the slopes just east of Nara. Deer roam through it, as they do through the park below, and in autumn their calls echo through the trees. In the shrine's grounds, thousands of stone lanterns line the paths, donated by worshippers over the centuries, and thousands of bronze lanterns hang from the eaves, lit twice a year during the lantern festivals.
Read the complete Kasuga-Taisha and Kasugayama Primeval Fore write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kasuga-Taisha and Kasugayama Primeval Fore is where the day begins. Next is Komuroyama Kofun.
Komuroyama belongs to the dense scatter of tombs on the Furuichi side of the Mozu-Furuichi group, in the part of southern Osaka where Habikino, Fujiidera and Matsubara run into one another. It is a modest mound in a district where the large tombs get all the attention, and most visitors pass it with a glance. That is probably the best way to understand the whole group: not as a set of monuments but as a landscape, where hills of earth, ponds, railway lines and houses all share the same plain.
Read the complete Komuroyama Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Komuroyama 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 82 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 Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja.
In the foothills below Mount Kōya, in the village of Kudoyama, stands the Niukanshōfu shrine, dedicated to the deities who protect the sacred mountain. In the ninth century, the monk Kūkai, known after his death as Kōbō Daishi, founded a monastery on the plateau of Kōyasan as the centre of Shingon Buddhism, and he established an administrative office here, at the foot of the mountain, to manage the supply of the monastery. Nearby, the temple of Jison-in is associated with Kūkai's mother, who according to tradition lived here because women were not allowed on the mountain, and her son came down to visit her. The shrine and temple mark the start of the Chōishi-michi, the pilgrim path to Kōyasan, marked every 109 metres by stone posts, which climbs about twenty kilometres to the monastery. The sites are part of the UNESCO listing of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja sits at 146 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 238 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 290 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Kôyasan - Jison-in. Next is back through Komuroyama Kofun.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Komuroyama Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Komuroyama Kofun, late in the day. Next is Kasuga-Taisha and Kasugayama Primeval Fore.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kasuga-Taisha and Kasugayama Primeval Fore write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 371 km.
Kasuga-Taisha and Kasugayama Primeval Fore → Komuroyama Kofun is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Komuroyama Kofun → Kôyasan - Jison-in is 50 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 → Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 52 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 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kôyasan - Jison-in → back through Komuroyama Kofun is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Komuroyama Kofun → Kasuga-Taisha and Kasugayama Primeval Fore is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.