Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi and Kitora Mounded Tomb

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi

   The Ômine Okugakemichi is not a road at all, at least not one you can ride. It is a mountain trail that runs for about a hundred kilometres along the spine of the Ômine range in the Kii peninsula, linking Yoshino in the north with Kumano in the south, over peaks, ridges and rock faces. For more than a thousand years, yamabushi, the mountain ascetics of the Shugendo tradition, have walked it as a spiritual practice, combining Buddhist, Shinto and older mountain beliefs, with rituals at sacred rocks, waterfalls and cliffs along the way. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range, inscribed in 2004.

   Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi is where the day begins. Next is Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja.

2. 2. Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja

   Mount Yoshino, in the mountains of Nara Prefecture, is famous throughout Japan for one thing above all: cherry blossom. Some thirty thousand trees cover its slopes, planted over the centuries as offerings, and each spring they bloom in waves from the lower slopes to the summit. Kimpu Shrine, Kimpu-jinja, stands near the top of the mountain, in the area known as Oku Senbon, the inner thousand trees, and it is part of the UNESCO-listed Sacred Sites of the Kii Mountain Range.

   Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kitora Mounded Tomb.

3. 3. Kitora Mounded Tomb

   Kitora is a small, round burial mound on a hillside in Asuka, the cradle of the Japanese state, south of Nara. From the outside, it looks like a grassy hump, unremarkable. Inside, when researchers inserted a fibre-optic camera in 1983, they found a stone chamber painted with some of the most extraordinary images in Japanese art: the four guardian animals of the cardinal directions, the black tortoise-snake of the north, the blue dragon of the east, the white tiger of the west and the red phoenix of the south, along with figures of the twelve zodiac animals with human bodies, and on the ceiling an astronomical chart showing the constellations, one of the oldest such star charts in the world. The tomb dates from the late seventh or early eighth century, and its occupant remains unknown. To preserve them, the paintings were removed from the walls and restored, and some are displayed at the Shijin no Yakata, a museum built next to the tomb.

   Read the complete Kitora Mounded Tomb write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 57 km into the recorded legs you reach Kitora Mounded Tomb. Next is back through Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja.

4. 4. back through Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja, late in the day. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi.

5. 5. Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi. That is the ride.