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 471 km round trip from Nara-shi - roughly 8 h 22 in the saddle. On the way it passes Hanzei-tenno-ryo Kofun, Kôyasan - Jison-in, Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K and Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha. The line favours views over speed.
Yakushi-ji is one of the great temples of Nara, the capital of Japan in the eighth century. It was founded by Emperor Tenmu in the late seventh century, praying for the recovery of his ill empress, and moved to its present site when the capital moved to Nara in 710. Dedicated to Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of healing, it is part of the UNESCO-listed Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara. The East Pagoda, which has stood since the eighth century, is one of the few surviving buildings from that era, and its layered roofs, with smaller roofs between each storey, create a rhythm described by one admirer as frozen music.
Read the complete Yakushi-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yakushi-ji is where the day begins. Next is Hanzei-tenno-ryo Kofun.
The Mozu kofun are strange. In the middle of modern Sakai, a heavy industrial and residential city south of Osaka, rise huge forested mounds surrounded by water-filled moats, some of them shaped like a keyhole, and these are the tombs of the rulers of Japan from the fifth century. Hanzei's tomb is one of the smaller ones in the group, though still well over a hundred metres long, and it is easily reached because the moat path runs around it. The giant of the group, attributed to Emperor Nintoku, is nearly five hundred metres long and one of the largest tombs in the world by area.
Read the complete Hanzei-tenno-ryo Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hanzei-tenno-ryo Kofun comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kôyasan - Jison-in.
Before you ride up to Mount Koya, the great mountain monastery of Shingon Buddhism, stop at its doorstep. Jison-in sits in the Kii river valley at Kudoyama, below the mountain, and it was founded by Kukai, the monk also known as Kobo Daishi, in the early ninth century as the administrative office and supply base for the new monastery above. Its most loved story concerns his mother. Women were barred from Koyasan for over a thousand years, so she lived here, and tradition says Kukai walked down nine times a month to visit her. That, the locals will tell you, is where the name Kudoyama, nine-times mountain, comes from.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Jison-in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 89 km into the recorded legs you reach Kôyasan - Jison-in. 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 156 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 329 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Kôyasan - Jison-in.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Jison-in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 380 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Kôyasan - Jison-in. Next is back through Hanzei-tenno-ryo Kofun.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hanzei-tenno-ryo Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hanzei-tenno-ryo Kofun, late in the day. Next is Yakushi-ji.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yakushi-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 471 km.
Yakushi-ji → Hanzei-tenno-ryo Kofun is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hanzei-tenno-ryo Kofun → Kôyasan - Jison-in is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kôyasan - Jison-in → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 51 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 94 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 Kôyasan - Jison-in is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kôyasan - Jison-in → back through Hanzei-tenno-ryo Kofun is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hanzei-tenno-ryo Kofun → Yakushi-ji is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.