Why this ride
From Hirado it runs 991 km to Hirado; allow about 17 h 05 of riding. The stops in between: Villages on Kashiragashima Island, Ono Village in Sotome and back through Villages on Kashiragashima Island. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado and Ono Village in Sotome
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 991 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 17 h 05
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Scenic road chapters
Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado → Villages on Kashiragashim
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 65 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 65 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado
Hirado is an island at the far northwest of Kyushu, joined to the mainland by a bridge, and it has a stranger history than most. In 1609 the Dutch East India Company opened a trading post here, and for a while Hirado was the only place in Japan where Europeans traded openly, before the shogunate shifted them to the artificial island of Dejima in Nagasaki in 1641. The town still has a harbour and a castle on the hill, and the sea is never far from any road.
Read the complete Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado is where the day begins. Next is Villages on Kashiragashima Island.
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 244 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ono Village in Sotome.
3. Ono Village in Sotome
For more than two centuries Christianity was banned in Japan, and in the villages along the Sotome coast north of Nagasaki, communities practised their faith in secret, disguising prayers as Buddhist chants and hiding images of the Virgin as the bodhisattva Kannon. These were the Hidden Christians, the Kakure Kirishitan, and their villages, including Ono, are part of the World Heritage listing of Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region, inscribed in 2018. At Ono the small Ono church, built by the French missionary Marc Marie de Rotz in the late nineteenth century after the ban was lifted, has thick walls built in a local technique of stones bound with mortar, known as de Rotz walls.
Read the complete Ono Village in Sotome write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 496 km into the recorded legs you reach Ono Village in Sotome. Next is back through Villages on Kashiragashima Island.
4. 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 Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado.
5. Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado to Villages on Kashiragashima Island
Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado → Villages on Kashiragashima Island is 244 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villages on Kashiragashima Island to Ono Village in Sotome
Villages on Kashiragashima Island → Ono Village in Sotome is 252 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Ono Village in Sotome to back through Villages on Kashiragashima Island
Ono Village in Sotome → back through Villages on Kashiragashima Island is 252 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Villages on Kashiragashima Island to Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado
back through Villages on Kashiragashima Island → Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado is 244 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.