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 Shizuoka it runs 427 km to Shizuoka; allow about 6 h 09 of riding. On the way it passes Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine, Fuji Sengen-jinja Shrine, Musée National des Beaux-Arts de l’Occiden and back through Fuji Sengen-jinja Shrine. 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.
Miho is a thin hook of land curling out into Suruga Bay, and Mihonomatsubara is the pine grove that covers it: tens of thousands of dark pines behind a long beach of grey, pebbly sand. People come for the view. On a clear day Mount Fuji sits on the other side of the bay, framed by the trees and the curve of the shore, and that image has been painted, printed and photographed for centuries. It is why the grove was included in the UNESCO listing for Fuji in 2013, as an artistic setting for the mountain rather than as a piece of nature in itself.
Read the complete Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove is where the day begins. Next is Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine.
Mount Fuji has been worshipped as a sacred mountain for as long as people have lived beneath it, and the Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha in Fujinomiya is the head shrine of that worship, the principal sanctuary of over a thousand Sengen shrines across Japan. Its main hall, rebuilt in the early seventeenth century under the patronage of Tokugawa Ieyasu, has an unusual two-storey design, painted in vermilion and set among tall trees. The shrine is dedicated to Konohanasakuya-hime, a goddess associated with the mountain, with blossoms and with fire.
Read the complete Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine comes up about 41 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fuji Sengen-jinja Shrine.
On the eastern side of Mount Fuji, in the village of Subashiri, a shrine has stood at the start of the pilgrims' path for more than a thousand years. The Fuji Sengen shrine, often called Higashiguchi Hongū, the eastern main shrine, marks the beginning of the Subashiri trail to the summit, and pilgrims traditionally prayed here before starting their climb. The shrine is set in a forest of tall cedars and old trees, with a red gate, wooden halls and a quiet, spiritual atmosphere, and it is one of the components of the Fujisan UNESCO site, recognised as part of the mountain's cultural and religious landscape.
Read the complete Fuji Sengen-jinja Shrine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 97 km into the recorded legs you reach Fuji Sengen-jinja Shrine. Next is Musée National des Beaux-Arts de l’Occiden.
Ueno is where Tokyo keeps its museums, and the National Museum of Western Art sits at the park's southern edge, a few minutes on foot from the station. The building is the point. Le Corbusier drew it in the late 1950s to house a collection of European art that Japan had won back from France after the war, and it later joined the UNESCO list of his works spread across several countries. It is a raised concrete box on pillars with a ramp-like logic inside, meant to grow outward as the collection did. In the forecourt Rodin's Gate of Hell and The Thinker sit in the open air, and on a grey morning the bronze looks wonderfully out of place against the Tokyo sky.
Read the complete Musée National des Beaux-Arts de l’Occiden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Musée National des Beaux-Arts de l’Occiden, about halfway. Next is back through Fuji Sengen-jinja Shrine.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fuji Sengen-jinja Shrine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fuji Sengen-jinja Shrine sits at 263 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine comes up about 384 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove closes the day.
Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove → Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine → Fuji Sengen-jinja Shrine is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fuji Sengen-jinja Shrine → Musée National des Beaux-Arts de l’Occiden is 115 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Musée National des Beaux-Arts de l’Occiden → back through Fuji Sengen-jinja Shrine is 116 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Fuji Sengen-jinja Shrine → back through Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine → Mihonomatsubara pine tree grove is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.