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.
349 km from Nagasaki to Nagasaki, about 17 h 59 of riding. It goes by way of Shitsu Village in Sotome, Villages on Kuroshima Island, Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado and back through Villages on Kuroshima Island. The line favours views over speed.
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 32 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Nagasaki has always lived off its harbour, and the harbour is a long, deep, hill-framed bay that looks, from the hillside streets, like a Scottish loch with a Japanese accent. The Kosuge Slip Dock sits on the eastern shore, a stone-lined cradle where ships were once hauled out of the water for repair. It dates from the very start of the Meiji era, the late 1860s, and was built with the help of Scottish engineers and a Scottish merchant, Thomas Glover. Mitsubishi took over the yard in the 1880s and the company is still building ships on the same shoreline today, which is why most of the neighbourhood is working industry rather than a museum.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Kosuge Slip Dock write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Kosuge Slip Dock is where the day begins. Next is Shitsu Village in Sotome.
Sotome is a stretch of rugged coast north of Nagasaki, where steep hills drop into the East China Sea, and the village of Shitsu clings to its slopes. During the centuries when Christianity was banned in Japan, the farmers and fishermen of this remote area kept their faith in secret, passing down prayers and rituals from generation to generation, hiding their devotion behind Buddhist and Shinto practices. When the ban was lifted in 1873, many of them returned to the Catholic Church. The Shitsu church, built in 1882 under the direction of the French missionary Marc Marie de Rotz, stands on a hill above the sea, a simple white building with a low profile designed to resist the strong winds. De Rotz was more than a priest: he taught the villagers to make bread, pasta and textiles, built a clinic and a workshop, and his legacy is still honoured locally. The village and church are part of the UNESCO listing of the Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region.
Read the complete Shitsu Village in Sotome write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Shitsu Village in Sotome comes up about 33 km into the recorded legs. Next is Villages on Kuroshima Island.
For more than two centuries after Christianity was banned in Japan in the early seventeenth century, small communities of believers kept their faith in secret, disguising prayers as Buddhist chants and images of the Virgin Mary as Buddhist figures. Kuroshima, a small island off the coast of Sasebo in Nagasaki Prefecture, was one of the places where these hidden Christians lived and farmed, and when the ban was lifted in the 1870s they emerged openly. Their villages are part of the UNESCO listing of Hidden Christian sites in the Nagasaki region, listed in 2018.
Read the complete Villages on Kuroshima Island write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 111 km into the recorded legs you reach Villages on Kuroshima Island. Next is Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado.
Hirado is an island off the northwest coast of Kyushu, connected to the mainland by a bright red suspension bridge, and for a brief moment in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was one of Japan's windows on the world. Portuguese traders arrived in 1550, followed by Jesuit missionaries, and later the Dutch and English East India Companies set up trading posts here. When Christianity was banned in the early seventeenth century and foreign trade was moved to Nagasaki, the Christians of Hirado went underground. Kasuga, a farming village on the western side of the island, is one of the places where these Hidden Christians, the Kakure Kirishitan, maintained their faith in secret for more than two centuries, outwardly following Buddhism and Shinto while worshipping Christian images disguised as Buddhist statues and reciting prayers in a garbled mix of Latin, Portuguese and Japanese. The village and the sacred mountain of Yasumandake above it are part of the UNESCO listing of the Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region.
Read the complete Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado, about halfway. Next is back through Villages on Kuroshima Island.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villages on Kuroshima Island write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villages on Kuroshima Island sits at 144 km, about halfway. Next is back through Shitsu Village in Sotome.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Shitsu Village in Sotome write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Shitsu Village in Sotome comes up about 316 km into the recorded legs. Next is Nagasaki Shipyard/ Kosuge Slip Dock.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Kosuge Slip Dock write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Kosuge Slip Dock closes the day.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Kosuge Slip Dock → Shitsu Village in Sotome is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Shitsu Village in Sotome → Villages on Kuroshima Island is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villages on Kuroshima Island → Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado → back through Villages on Kuroshima Island is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villages on Kuroshima Island → back through Shitsu Village in Sotome is 80 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Shitsu Village in Sotome → Nagasaki Shipyard/ Kosuge Slip Dock is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.