Villages on Kashiragashima Island and Ono Village in Sotome · 800 km

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. 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 72 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado.

3. 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 195 km into the recorded legs you reach Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado. Next is Ono Village in Sotome.

4. 4. Ono Village in Sotome

   For more than two centuries Christianity was banned in Japan, and in the villages along the Sotome coast north of Nagasaki, communities practised their faith in secret, disguising prayers as Buddhist chants and hiding images of the Virgin as the bodhisattva Kannon. These were the Hidden Christians, the Kakure Kirishitan, and their villages, including Ono, are part of the World Heritage listing of Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region, inscribed in 2018. At Ono the small Ono church, built by the French missionary Marc Marie de Rotz in the late nineteenth century after the ban was lifted, has thick walls built in a local technique of stones bound with mortar, known as de Rotz walls.

   Read the complete Ono Village in Sotome write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Ono Village in Sotome, about halfway. Next is back through Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado.

5. 5. 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

   back through Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado sits at 533 km, about halfway. Next is back through Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island.

6. 6. 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 comes up about 728 km into the recorded legs. Next is Villages on Kashiragashima 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

   Villages on Kashiragashima Island closes the day.