Why this ride
The stops in between: Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island, Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado and back through Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Villages on Kashiragashima Island and Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado · 600 km
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 600 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 10 h 21
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Scenic road chapters
Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island → Kasuga Village and Sacred Place
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 46 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 46 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Villages on Kashiragashima Island
Kashiragashima is a scrap of rock off the northeast coast of Nakadōri, in the Gotō Islands west of Nagasaki, and for a long time nobody wanted to live there. In the nineteenth century the island was used as a place to isolate smallpox patients, and that very isolation drew a small group of Hidden Christians, Japanese Catholics who had kept their faith in secret through more than two centuries of persecution. They settled in a cove, farmed the steep slopes and fished. After the ban on Christianity was lifted, they built a church out of the local sandstone, quarried and carried by hand, under the direction of the master builder Tetsukawa Yosuke, who designed many churches across the region. Completed in 1919, it is a sturdy, beautiful building, and the village is part of the UNESCO listing of Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region, inscribed in 2018.
Read the complete Villages on Kashiragashima Island write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Villages on Kashiragashima Island is where the day begins. Next is Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island.
2. Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island
Nozaki is a long, steep island in the Goto archipelago, off the western coast of Kyushu, and almost nobody lives there now. In the nineteenth century, Christians who had kept their faith secretly for over two hundred years of persecution under the Tokugawa shogunate settled on the island, farming its steep slopes alongside the community that served a Shinto shrine. When the ban on Christianity was lifted in 1873, they built a church, and the brick church of Nokubi, completed in 1908, still stands on a hill above the sea. The island and its abandoned villages are a piece of the World Heritage property for Hidden Christian sites in the Nagasaki region.
Read the complete Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island comes up about 112 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado.
3. 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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 302 km into the recorded legs you reach Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado. Next is back through Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island.
4. back through Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island, late in the day. Next is Villages on Kashiragashima Island.
5. Villages on Kashiragashima Island
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villages on Kashiragashima Island write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Villages on Kashiragashima Island. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Villages on Kashiragashima Island to Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island
Villages on Kashiragashima Island → Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island is 112 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island to Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado
Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island → Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado is 190 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado to back through Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island
Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado → back through Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island is 190 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island to Villages on Kashiragashima Island
back through Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island → Villages on Kashiragashima Island is 112 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.