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.
512 km from Minamishimabara to Minamishimabara, about 13 h 39 of riding. On the way it passes Oura Cathedral, Villages on Kuroshima Island, Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado and Remains of Hara Castle. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
51 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it — speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 36 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go. Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
On a headland overlooking the Ariake Sea, at the southern tip of the Shimabara Peninsula in Nagasaki prefecture, the grassy ruins of Hara Castle mark the scene of one of the darkest episodes in Japanese history. In the winter of 1637 to 1638, thousands of peasants, many of them Christians, rose up against heavy taxation and religious persecution, and took refuge in the abandoned castle under the leadership of a charismatic teenager, Amakusa Shirō. The shogunate besieged the castle for months with a huge army, and when it finally fell, almost all the defenders, including women and children, were killed.
Read the complete Remains of Hara Castle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Remains of Hara Castle is where the day begins. Next is Oura Cathedral.
Nagasaki is a city of steep hills around a deep harbour, and on one of those slopes above the old foreign settlement stands a small white Gothic church that is, in its quiet way, one of the most important in Japan. Oura Cathedral was built in the early 1860s by French missionaries, who had been allowed to serve the foreign community in the treaty port after Japan's long seclusion, and it was dedicated to the twenty-six Christians who were executed on a hill in Nagasaki in 1597. The church faces the site of that martyrdom, and it is the oldest surviving Gothic-style church in the country.
Read the complete Oura Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Oura Cathedral comes up about 67 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 161 km into the recorded legs you reach Villages on Kuroshima Island. Next is Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado.
Hirado is an island at the far northwest of Kyushu, joined to the mainland by a bridge, and it has a stranger history than most. In 1609 the Dutch East India Company opened a trading post here, and for a while Hirado was the only place in Japan where Europeans traded openly, before the shogunate shifted them to the artificial island of Dejima in Nagasaki in 1641. The town still has a harbour and a castle on the hill, and the sea is never far from any road.
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 Remains of Hara Castle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villages on Kuroshima Island sits at 215 km, about halfway. Next is back through Oura Cathedral.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Oura Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Oura Cathedral comes up about 444 km into the recorded legs. Next is Remains of Hara Castle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Remains of Hara Castle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Remains of Hara Castle closes the day.
Remains of Hara Castle → Oura Cathedral is 67 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Oura Cathedral → Villages on Kuroshima Island is 94 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Villages on Kuroshima Island → Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado → Back to Remains of Hara Castle is 156 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Oura Cathedral → Remains of Hara Castle is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.