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.
A 475 km round trip from Nara-shi - roughly 7 h 36 in the saddle. On the way it passes Kitora Mounded Tomb, Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji, Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K and Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Toshodai-ji exists because a blind monk would not give up. Ganjin, a Chinese master of Buddhist law, was invited to Japan in the eighth century to teach proper monastic ordination, and he tried to cross the sea five times, defeated by storms, pirates and official obstruction, until he went blind. On the sixth attempt, in 753, he arrived in Japan, and in 759 he founded this temple in Nara. His own ordination hall still stands in the grounds, and a dry-lacquer statue of him, said to be a faithful likeness, is kept at the temple and shown only occasionally.
Read the complete Tôshôdai-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tôshôdai-ji is where the day begins. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kitora Mounded Tomb comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji.
Ōminesan-ji is a temple on the summit of Mount Sanjō, one of the peaks of the Ōmine range in the heart of the Kii peninsula, and it holds a special place in Japanese religion. It is a centre of Shugendō, the mountain ascetic tradition that blends Buddhism, Shinto and older mountain worship, and its practitioners, the yamabushi, undergo arduous training on the ridges. The temple is famous for another reason too: the mountain is still closed to women by tradition, one of the last such places in Japan, which has become a subject of ongoing debate.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 77 km into the recorded legs you reach Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K.
Mount Kōya is one of Japan's great sacred places, a high basin in the mountains of northern Wakayama where the monk Kūkai founded a monastic centre for Shingon Buddhism in the early ninth century. Today it is a town of over a hundred temples, many of which take in overnight guests, set among towering cedars. South of the summit plateau, deep in the forested ridges, run the old pilgrim trails that link Kōya with the Kumano shrines, part of the network inscribed by UNESCO as the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K, about halfway. Next is Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha.
Deep in the mountains of the Kii Peninsula, where forested ridges fold one behind another like the scenery in a woodblock print, stands the head shrine of the Kumano faith. Kumano Hongū Taisha is one of the three grand shrines of Kumano, and for over a thousand years emperors, aristocrats and ordinary pilgrims have walked here along the network of mountain trails known as the Kumano Kodō, now part of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha sits at 151 km, about halfway. Next is back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K comes up about 334 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 401 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji. Next is back through Kitora Mounded Tomb.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kitora Mounded Tomb write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kitora Mounded Tomb, late in the day. Next is Tôshôdai-ji.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tôshôdai-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 475 km.
Tôshôdai-ji → Kitora Mounded Tomb is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kitora Mounded Tomb → Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 67 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha is 95 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 95 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → back through Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji is 67 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji → back through Kitora Mounded Tomb is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kitora Mounded Tomb → Tôshôdai-ji is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.