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 436 km round trip from Kashihara-shi - roughly 6 h 30 in the saddle. The stops in between: Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K, Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I and back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 76 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I.
The Iseji is the eastern branch of the old pilgrimage roads to the three great Kumano shrines, running down the coast of the Kii Peninsula from the Grand Shrines of Ise to Kumano. For centuries, pilgrims followed it through forests and over passes, and stretches of its stone paving still survive in the hills, laid to keep the path usable in one of the rainiest parts of Japan. Owase, a little up the coast, regularly ranks among the wettest towns in the country, and the moss on the stones and the dripping cedar forests show it. The Iseji forms part of the UNESCO listing of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 217 km into the recorded legs you reach Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I. 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, late in the day. Next is 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 at Mounded Tomb of Emperor Temmu and Empress. That is the ride.
Mounded Tomb of Emperor Temmu and Empress → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 76 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I is 141 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 142 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → Mounded Tomb of Emperor Temmu and Empress is 76 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.