CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 Nagasaki it runs 351 km to Nagasaki; allow about 12 h 11 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 Senshokaku G. 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.
Senshokaku is a surprise in a shipyard city: a wooden Western-style guesthouse of 1904, built by Mitsubishi on the hillside above its Nagasaki shipyard so that foreign clients and dignitaries could stay in comfort while ships were built and launched below. The house, with its verandas and clapboard walls, looks out over the harbour, and from here the owners could watch their vessels take shape. Today it is part of the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution, which UNESCO recognised in 2015, and it is a reminder that heavy industry in Japan was as much about hosting and diplomacy as steel plate.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Senshokaku G write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Senshokaku G 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 36 km in. 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.
71 km in 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 Senshokaku G write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villages on Kuroshima Island sits at 142 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 178 km in. Next is Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Senshokaku G.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Senshokaku G write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Senshokaku G closes the day.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Senshokaku G → Shitsu Village in Sotome is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Shitsu Village in Sotome → Villages on Kuroshima Island is 47 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 31 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 Senshokaku G is 100 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Shitsu Village in Sotome → Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Senshokaku G is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.