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.
354 km from Nagasaki to Nagasaki, about 12 h 10 of riding. On the way it passes Shitsu Village in Sotome, Villages on Kuroshima Island, Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado and Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 spills down its hills towards the harbour in a way that makes every drive feel like a lesson in gravity, and the Mitsubishi shipyard sits right at the water's edge, a wall of cranes and dry docks that has shaped the city for a century and a half. The Number Three Dry Dock, finished in the early twentieth century, is one of the pieces of Japan's Meiji-era industrial heritage that were added to the World Heritage list in 2015. It is stone-lined, deep and surprisingly beautiful, like a rectangular canyon cut for ships. Mitsubishi took over the yard in the 1880s, and from here came warships and liners that helped turn a closed, feudal country into an industrial power in a startlingly short time.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc 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 31 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 109 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 Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villages on Kuroshima Island sits at 141 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 322 km into the recorded legs. Next is Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc, 35 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc closes the day.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc → Shitsu Village in Sotome is 31 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 to Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc is 119 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Shitsu Village in Sotome → Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.