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 213 km round trip from Kashihara-shi - roughly 4 h 12 in the saddle. It goes by way of Horyu-ji Area, Nisanzai Kofun, Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi and back through Nisanzai Kofun. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Kitora is a small, round burial mound on a hillside in Asuka, the cradle of the Japanese state, south of Nara. From the outside, it looks like a grassy hump, unremarkable. Inside, when researchers inserted a fibre-optic camera in 1983, they found a stone chamber painted with some of the most extraordinary images in Japanese art: the four guardian animals of the cardinal directions, the black tortoise-snake of the north, the blue dragon of the east, the white tiger of the west and the red phoenix of the south, along with figures of the twelve zodiac animals with human bodies, and on the ceiling an astronomical chart showing the constellations, one of the oldest such star charts in the world. The tomb dates from the late seventh or early eighth century, and its occupant remains unknown. To preserve them, the paintings were removed from the walls and restored, and some are displayed at the Shijin no Yakata, a museum built next to the tomb.
Read the complete Kitora Mounded Tomb write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kitora Mounded Tomb is where the day begins. Next is Horyu-ji Area.
The buildings at Hōryū-ji are around thirteen hundred years old, and some of them are among the oldest wooden structures anywhere in the world. Founded in the early seventh century by Prince Shōtoku, a regent remembered as a champion of Buddhism and a founding figure of the Japanese state, the temple was rebuilt after a fire later in the same century, and parts of that rebuilding still stand. In 1993 it became one of the first sites in Japan to be listed by UNESCO, as the Buddhist Monuments in the Hōryū-ji Area.
Read the complete Horyu-ji Area write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hōryū-ji Area comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Nisanzai Kofun.
In the middle of the sprawling city of Sakai, south of Osaka, a large keyhole-shaped mound rises above a ring of moats, covered in dense forest and surrounded by houses, roads and shops. This is the Nisanzai Kofun, a monumental tomb built in the fifth century for a member of the ruling elite of early Japan. It is one of the largest of the Mozu-Furuichi Kofun Group, a collection of burial mounds listed by UNESCO in 2019, which includes the enormous Daisen Kofun, traditionally attributed to the emperor Nintoku and one of the largest tombs in the world by area.
Read the complete Nisanzai Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 57 km into the recorded legs you reach Nisanzai Kofun. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi.
Kōyasan is a city in the sky. In 816 the monk Kūkai, known after his death as Kōbō Daishi, received permission from the emperor to found a monastery on a high, forested plateau in the Kii mountains, and from that start the settlement grew into the headquarters of Shingon Buddhism, with over a hundred temples tucked among the cedars. A few thousand people live in the town, and many of the temples take pilgrims and visitors as guests, serving a vegetarian temple meal called shojin ryori and waking guests for morning prayers. At the far end of the main street begins Okunoin, the great cemetery, where a two-kilometre path winds beneath tall cedars past tens of thousands of moss-covered gravestones to the mausoleum of Kūkai, who is believed to be in eternal meditation rather than dead.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi, about halfway. Next is back through Nisanzai Kofun.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nisanzai Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Nisanzai Kofun sits at 134 km, about halfway. Next is back through Horyu-ji Area.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Horyu-ji Area write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Horyu-ji Area comes up about 185 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kitora Mounded Tomb.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kitora Mounded Tomb write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kitora Mounded Tomb closes the day.
Kitora Mounded Tomb → Horyu-ji Area is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hōryū-ji Area → Nisanzai Kofun is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nisanzai Kofun → Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi → back through Nisanzai Kofun is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nisanzai Kofun → back through Horyu-ji Area is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Horyu-ji Area → Kitora Mounded Tomb is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.