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.
228 km from Yoshino-chō to Yoshino-chō, about 3 h 58 of riding. It goes by way of Kitora Mounded Tomb, Tôshôdai-ji, Daigo-ji and back through Tôshôdai-ji. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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.
Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-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 43 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tôshôdai-ji.
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.
about 73 km into the recorded legs you reach Tôshôdai-ji. Next is Daigo-ji.
The oldest building in Kyoto does not stand in the city centre but in the southeastern hills, at the temple of Daigo-ji: a five storey pagoda completed in 951, which has survived fires, earthquakes and wars that destroyed almost everything else of its age in the city. The temple was founded in the ninth century on Mount Daigo, and its grounds spread from the foot of the mountain to the summit, linked by a steep path, with halls, gardens and sub temples along the way. It is part of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto World Heritage Site.
Read the complete Daigo-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Daigo-ji, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Tôshôdai-ji sits at 145 km, about halfway. 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 comes up about 185 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji closes the day.
Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji → Kitora Mounded Tomb is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kitora Mounded Tomb → Tôshôdai-ji is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tôshôdai-ji → Daigo-ji is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Daigo-ji → back through Tôshôdai-ji is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tôshôdai-ji → back through Kitora Mounded Tomb is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kitora Mounded Tomb → Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.