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.
197 km from Arashiyama to Arashiyama, about 3 h 49 of riding. It goes by way of Nara Palace Site, Fujiwara Palace Site, Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja and back through Fujiwara Palace Site. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
43 km on Saiho-ji → Nara Palace Site.
Saiho-ji has a nickname that tells the whole story: Kokedera, the moss temple. The garden is carpeted by well over a hundred varieties of moss, in shades from emerald to near yellow, spreading between the trees and around the pond in a soft, damp quilt, and a day of rain makes it glow. The effect is accidental in origin, since the moss spread after the temple was neglected in the nineteenth century, but it fits the garden's older bones, which were laid out in the fourteenth century by the Zen master Muso Soseki. Muso also designed the garden of Tenryu-ji, on the other side of the Katsura river, and you can see a family likeness.
Read the complete Saiho-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Saiho-ji is where the day begins. Next is Nara Palace Site.
For most of the eighth century, Nara was the capital of Japan. The city, then called Heijō-kyō, was laid out on a grid modelled on the Chinese capital Chang'an, and at its northern end stood the imperial palace, Heijō-kyū, a vast compound of halls, offices and gardens. When the court moved away at the end of the century, the palace was abandoned and the land eventually returned to rice fields. Today the Nara Palace Site is a huge open space on the western side of the modern city, part of the UNESCO-listed Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara.
Read the complete Nara Palace Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nara Palace Site comes up about 43 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fujiwara Palace Site.
Before Nara, before Kyoto, there was Fujiwara-kyō. In 694, the Empress Jitō moved the Japanese court to a new capital in the southern part of the Nara basin, the first in Japan to be laid out on a Chinese-style grid of streets, with the imperial palace at its centre. It lasted only sixteen years, until the court moved north to Nara in 710, but it marked a turning point in the history of the Japanese state.
Read the complete Fujiwara Palace Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 70 km into the recorded legs you reach Fujiwara Palace Site. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja, about halfway. Next is back through Fujiwara Palace Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fujiwara Palace Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fujiwara Palace Site sits at 135 km, about halfway. Next is back through Nara Palace Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nara Palace Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Nara Palace Site comes up about 153 km into the recorded legs. Next is Saiho-ji.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Saiho-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Saiho-ji closes the day.
Saiho-ji → Nara Palace Site is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nara Palace Site → Fujiwara Palace Site is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fujiwara Palace Site → Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpu-jinja → back through Fujiwara Palace Site is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fujiwara Palace Site → back through Nara Palace Site is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nara Palace Site → Saiho-ji is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.