Villages on Kashiragashima Island and Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 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. 2. 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 169 km into the recorded legs you reach Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado. Next is Villages on Kuroshima Island.

3. 3. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Villages on Kuroshima Island, about halfway.

4. 4. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado sits at 421 km, about halfway. Next is back through Villages on Kuroshima Island.

5. 5. back through Villages on Kuroshima Island

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Villages on Kuroshima Island write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   back through Villages on Kuroshima Island comes up about 468 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado.

6. 6. back through Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   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 560 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado. Next is back through Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island.

7. 7. 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

   The route ends here after 839 km.